The Gift of Baldur's Gate
by APhantasm
Summary: Buffy, Dawn and Willow are transported to the world of Faerun via the Key. There they make several discoveries as they try to find away of returning home. Will they manage to return home of will they make a life for themselves on Faerun?
1. Chapter 1: Candlekeep

**Summary:** Buffy, Dawn and Willow are transported to the world of Faerun via the Key. There they make several discoveries as they try to find away of returning home. Will they manage to return home of will they make a life for themselves on Faerun?

 **Pairings:** Khalid/Jaheira (most of story with Buffy/Jaheira towards the end)

 **Disclaimer:** Joss Whedon owns Buffy. Wizard of the Coast owns Dungeon's and Dragons, Baldur's Gate and the Forgotten Realms setting of Faerun. Bioware developed the original Baldur's Gate PC game which was released by Interplay in 1998.

 **Author's Note:** To some of you who might remember. This story was started a long time ago and then taken down for a rewrite. I am finally able to say I have done the rewrite and am putting it up once again. This story goes through the end of the first game with a sequel planned that takes place in the second Baldur's Gate game.

* * *

 _ **The Gift of Baldur's Gate: Bhaalspawn? Who me?**_

 **Chapter 1: Candlekeep**

Buffy looked out from the tower as the sun began to rise over the horizon. Below her and Dawn a portal formed. She turned and looked at her sister, giving Dawn a sad smile.

Dawn realized what Buffy intended to do, to jump so that she wouldn't have to. "Buffy ... no ..."

"Dawnie ... I have to –"

"NO!"

"Listen to me! There's no time, Dawn, please listen." Buffy said as she pulled Dawn close to her so that she could whisper in her sister's ear. "Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I'll always love you. But this is the work I have to do. Tell Giles I ... I figured it out. And I'm okay. Give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now – you have to take care of each other. You have to be strong, Dawn. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me."

Tears began to fall down Dawn's face as she began to accept the inevitable, the loss of her sister. "I will Buffy, and I love you."

Buffy smiled as she pulled Dawn in to an embrace. She then turned to run towards the end of the platform when the tower gave a rumble and the sisters began sliding forward. Buffy grabbed Dawn and held her close as they fell off the tower and down into the portal disappearing in a flash of white light. At that exact same moment a tendril of energy hit Willow and she too vanished.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy looked up at her surroundings and realized she was in the middle of a library. She looked to the left and right searching for Dawn. "Dawn?" she called out, knowing her sister had fallen into the portal with her.

A robed man approached Buffy with a puzzled look on his face. "How… how did you manage to get a portal to open through the wards?" he asked quite astonished at what he had just witnessed.

Buffy stood as she looked around the interior of the library still searching for her sister. "I don't even know where here is. Do you see a brunette girl, fourteen going on fifteen?"

"I'm sorry," the man said as he looked around at the other robed men and women, who shook their heads. He extended his hand and helped Buffy to her feet. "I am Gorion, and I am afraid the girl you mention, did not travel with you. And about where you are, you are within the walls of Candlekeep."

Time passed and Buffy was put up at Winthrop's inn and her lodging paid for by Gorion himself. Buffy spent most of her time searching the woods just outside Candlekeep searching for Dawn and coming up empty, the rest of her time was spent either in the library or sparring with one of the guards.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Aquarra walked around the village, much as she did every morning, her mind racing through various things. It was on one of her regular walks that she ran into a strange blonde woman. Her foster father had told her about Buffy, how he had found Buffy inside the library. He never told Aquarra how she had wound up there or where she had come from. But Aquarra knew that it would take a great deal of magic to penetrate the wards. So she wondered how Buffy had gotten there.

She came upon Buffy practicing with one of the guards. She watched as Buffy sparred first with simple fists and later with swords. She was amazed at the skill Buffy displayed. She was definitely a capable sword fighter on par at least with the guard.

Suddenly Aquarra felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to face one of the guards of the keep a man she knew to be Hull Williams. "Miss Aquarra, your father wishes to see you. He currently is waiting on the steps of the library."

Aquarra nodded as she glanced back at Buffy. "Thank you, Hull. I will go see him immediately." She then turned and left the sparring match wishing she could ask Buffy some questions. She quickly made her way to the library and found Gorion there just as Hull had said he would be.

"You wish to see me, father?" She knew she was not Gorion's biological daughter, but more of his foster daughter. But Aquarra had long since come to consider him her father, foster or otherwise.

"I have Aquarra. We must leave Candlekeep tomorrow before nightfall." Gorion said

Aquarra looked at Gorion confused. For as long as she could remember, Gorion had never left Candlekeep. "Why, father?"

Gorion looked at his foster daughter for what seemed like forever before he finally answered, "I believe it wise for us to depart."

"But why?" Aquarra asked again. She knew his answer had not answered why.

Gorion smiled and shook his head, "Finish what errands you need to and pack your things. For tomorrow we leave Candlekeep."

Moments later Aquarra entered the inn and walked over to Winthrop, "Good Afternoon, Winthrop."

"Well hello there, young one! Come to visit your old pal Winthrop, have ye? Well, don't forget the 5,000 gold piece book entrance fee, as per Candlekeep custom, doncha know." Winthrop joked.

Aquarra laughed, while she knew the book entrance fee was required of all visitors, since she lived within Candlekeep with Gorion she knew it did not apply to her either. "You always were the big kidder, Winthrop. That gets funnier nearly every time I hear it. Well, perhaps not quite so often."

Winthrop laughed, "Haw! Just having a bit o' fun with ye, my friend. Them monks may be walking about with poles in their nethers, but you know you are always welcome here in my sight. Gorion did well by you, he did. So is there anything I can do for ya. Some drinks, a room to sleep in, or anything to buy."

"Yeah I need to stock up on supplies; Gorion says were to be taking a trip tomorrow." Aquarra said with a twinge of sadness at the thought of leaving. "I am finishing up some errands first though. Fuller wants a quarrel of crossbow bolts."

"I have a quarrel of crossbow bolts right here. Came in just this morning. Just have Fuller come by later with payment." Winthrop said as he handed the quarrel to Aquarra.

Aquarra was about to respond when she saw Buffy walk up to her and Winthrop.

"Did I hear right your leaving here?" Buffy asked as she looked at Aquarra.

Aquarra nodded, "That's correct."

"I was wondering if I could join you," Buffy said. "I don't know if you know how I arrived or not. But my sister came with me and is of course now missing. I would like someone to travel with who knows the things around here while I search for her."

Aquarra smiled as she looked at the three women. "You can come with me to ask Gorion yourself if you like. I do not know if my foster father would object or not."

"Thank you. By the way my name is Buffy." Buffy said." If you would lead the way we will follow."

"You don't mind if I finish a few errands first, do you?" Aquarra said.

Buffy shook her head. "No I don't mind."

Aquarra led the way out of the Inn and south to just across from where she had watched Buffy sparring earlier. She led Buffy inside the guard barracks and to one of the guards.

The man smiled at Aquarra as she handed him a quarrel of crossbow bolts. "Thanks, kid. I hear tell you might be leaving this place soon. Watch your back out there, okay? Here, let me give you this dagger," he said handing her the dagger in question. "My father killed a hobgoblin with it once, many years ago. Stabbed right in the back, he did. It ain't a broadsword, but it'll do in a pinch. Now take care of yourself."

"Thanks Fuller," Aquarra said as she walked across the room to one of the beds and a chest. She pulled out a bottle of liquid and a sword.

As Aquarra passed Fuller he spoke up, "Before I forget Aquarra. I have a note here for you."

"Thank you Fuller." Aquarra said as she quickly read the note he had handed her. "I will proceed there next." She then walked back to Buffy. "Got a few more errands and then we'll go see father."

"Lead the way." Buffy said as they made their way outside and over to the next building.

Aquarra held up the note that Fuller gave her. "Someone wanted to meet me here. It's not signed so I have no idea who wrote it." She led the Buffy inside where they found a man waiting for them.

"Seems my note did the trick was not sure it would. You're Gorion's little whelp, aren't ya? Yeah you match the description. You don't look so dangerous to me." The man said.

Aquarra looked at Buffy and then at the man, "That I am, do I know you?"

"No, I don't believe you do. I'll not be here long, so it doesn't matter. You'll not be here long either, so it matters even less." The man said.

Buffy frowned as she stepped toward the man. "Look here, I don't know who you are…"

The man looked at Buffy as if sizing her up. "This is none of your affair; I suggest you leave."

Buffy smiled as she unsheathed a sword. "Look I gave you fair warning. This young lady is currently under my protection."

The man shook his head and attacked with none other than a dagger as Buffy moved to defend herself. She quickly and easily dispatched him. She looked down at the man's corpse shaking her head, she had never killed a human before, she was supposed to protect them, not kill them.

"I thank you friend," Aquarra said with a smile. "I am in your debt. I am glad that you decided to follow me on my errands. I might not have been able to escape this man if not for you."

"Think nothing of it. I just wish I could have taken him alive." Buffy said.

Aquarra nodded and quietly searched the body before they left the bunkhouse. Outside Aquarra stopped one of the guards that passed them by, "A man just tried to kill me in the bunkhouse. My friend here saved me from a most gruesome fate."

The guard nodded as he looked at Buffy before turning and heading into the bunkhouse.

"Why did you take that guys stuff?" Buffy asked.

Aquarra blinked as she looked at Buffy. "It is the way of the world. If he had killed us he would have taken our possessions as his own."

Buffy sighed. "It just seems wrong to be stealing from the dead like that."

Aquarra nodded. "I understand."

After leaving the building behind they turned north and headed towards the gate where they met Hull. Aquarra handed him the sword she had taken from the barracks.

"Thanks, kiddo. Gorion didn't bring you up half bad, did he … You're lucky to have grown up here in Candlekeep, to be honest. Sometimes I think the world outside these gates has gone mad, what with all this fighting over iron shortages and all. Amn and Baldur's Gate will be at war before the seasons out, mark my words… Anyhow, I'm on duty. Here's 20 gold pieces for saving my skin from the Chief." Hull said as he handed her the gold coins.

"That was a nice gesture from that guard." Buffy said as they walked on north towards a storehouse.

"Yes, that was a nice reward from Hull." Aquarra said as they approached a short man who stood outside the warehouse.

"I thought I asked you to clean the rats out of this building yesterday, already."

"I will get to it now." Aquarra said as she led the way into the storehouse.

Buffy bent down to grab a rat by the tail and was stopped by Aquarra.

"Best to kill them, we don't know what diseases they might be carrying," Aquarra explained.

Buffy nodded as she unsheathed the sword for the second time that day and started hacking at the rats that she found. She saw Aquarra was doing the same thing.

The short man smiled as Aquarra walked up to him outside. "Ah yes, kill them like the rats they are! A glorious battle unlike any this world has ever seen… Here's 5 gold pieces, don't spend it all in one place."

Buffy shook her head as they walked north passing the temple. "That Hull fellow was more generous than that guy was. You got 20 gold pieces for giving the guard the sword. But only 5 gold pieces for killing the rats."

Aquarra shrugged as they walked up to man standing near his cow and Aquarra handed him the bottle she had taken from the barracks.

"Heh, yer a wonder, you are. Stick with me and we'll go far … Well okay, stick with me and we'd prob'ly never leave the walls of Candlekeep, would we … They say the bandits out there aren't after gold and gems anymore but just plain old iron. It's one of them whatchamacallits, paradoxes or whatever: It's dangerous so you want to wear some good solid plate and carry an axe that would make Tempus jealous but , rather than protectin' ya, it just makes everyone want a piece of ya, right? Given my druthers, I guess I'd rather stay right here…" The man told her.

Aquarra nodded as she led them towards another bunkhouse. Just as she was about to enter Buffy put a hand on her arm. "Do you actually have an errand in there?" Buffy asked.

"Not really." Aquarra said with a shake of her head.

"Then based on what happened earlier. May I suggest we not go in there just to be on the safe side?"

"That might be a good idea. Well then that's it. It is time to go see, Gorion." Aquarra said as she led Buffy towards the library where they met a young woman.

"I'm surprised that stuffy ol' Gorion let you away from your studies or chores. That ol' fiddle faddle. I snuck off too. Winthrop was looking for me, but I have all day to do his chores. You have time for a story today? No, I can tell you don't. What have you been up to?" The young woman said.

"I'm afraid I can't chat today, Imoen. My foster father wants me to prepare for a journey tomorrow, but will not say to where. And Buffy here seeks to go with us, if he will permit it." Aquarra said with a smile.

"A journey, eh? I never get to travel. Wish I could go with ya. Yep, I really wish I could. Yessir. Really do." Imoen said.

Aquarra sighed, "All right all right. I get the message. I will ask if you can go with us."

"Oh don't be silly, Gorion would never even let you finish the sentence. Especially after what that letter of his said… er… did I say that? No, of course I didn't. Never saw no letter. Nope, I'll just get back to work now. You better go. Gorion is waiting." Imoen said as she walked off.

"Quite the babbler, might given a run a friend of mine a run for her money," Buffy said as she thought wistfully of Willow.

As they walked up to the front steps of the library they found Gorion waiting for Aquarra.

"Why hello Ms. Summers. Aquarra why are you accompanying her? Did she ask you for help in research?" Gorion said.

Aquarra shook her head and smiled. "Buffy wishes to go with us."

"You wish to travel with us?" Gorion said turning to Buffy and giving her a look.

Buffy nodded. "Yes I was never for research and without Dawn here I don't think I have the ambition to finish looking. I need to find my sister and once that is done …"

Gorion nodded in understanding. He knew from his dealings with Buffy that she would not leave without Dawn. "And you would like to travel with someone who knows the area. A sensible precaution. I'm afraid where were going…"

Aquarra shook her head as she tried to persuade her father to let Buffy come. "Do this for me father. I owe Buffy. If not for her I would be dead now. We were attacked in one of the bunkhouses."

Gorion sighed. "Very well. It might be a good idea to have some more traveling companions, for protection."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Aquarra and Buffy found Gorion waiting for them on the steps of the library the next morning. "Have you packed your possessions so we can leave Candlekeep immediately?" Gorion asked Aquarra.

"I am ready." Aquarra said.

Gorion turned to face Buffy, "And you?"

"I have what little I've accumulated." Buffy said as they made their way to the gates at just before dusk.

It was a teary farewell for Aquarra as several of the guards, and the gatewarden, bid her goodbye.

Buffy smiled as she watched the exchange. She was happy that Aquarra was getting a chance to say goodbye to her friends. She herself got that chance, though she held out hope that once she found Dawn and returned to Candlekeep they would find a way of returning home.

As they exited the gates Gorion stopped and turned to Aquarra, "Aquarra should we get separated. You are to proceed to the Friendly Arms Inn. I have friends, Jaheira and Khalid, waiting for us there."

"Of course, father. But why would we be separated?" Aquarra said.

Gorion smiled but did not answer Aquarra's question as he turned to look at the Buffy. "I trust you will stay at her side no matter what happens, at least till Aquarra is safe and you have found your sister?"

"Of course." Buffy agreed.

They walked out of Candlekeep together, "It is likely better to stay off the road. Lest we run into bandits."Gorion said as Buffy nodded in agreement. "I know you have many questions, Aquarra. And as soon as we can find shelter I will explain."

They made it well past highsun of the third day out of Candlekeep, following the wide, well-traveled Coast Way road, before finding their way blocked by a band of cutthroats and armored man.

Buffy drew her sword and waited for the armored man to make the first move.

The armored man looked at Gorion, Buffy and Aquarra and smirked. "You know why I am here. Hand over your ward and no one will be hurt. If you resist it will be a waste of your life."

"You're a fool if you think I will trust your benevolence. Step aside and you and your lackeys will be unhurt." Gorion said.

Buffy glared at the man, her slayer senses telling her things were about get bad, "I'd do what he says if I were you."

The armored man looked to Buffy and laughed. "You do not frighten me, girl."

"You're loss, for you don't know who I am and what I can do." Buffy said.

The armored man decided then was the best moment and attacked them. Gorion looks briefly at Buffy, "Run, take Aquarra to safety."

Buffy frowned, she was torn between staying and helping him or protecting Aquarra as she promised. Finally she grabbed Aquarra's arm and pulled the girl away, who struggled against her intending on staying and helping her foster father.

They concealed themselves as well as they could in the bushes and moved away silently. They fled until Buffy was sure they were far enough away that the armored man or the other cutthroats would not find them. Then they stopped as Aquarra, who knew with all certainty that her foster father lay in that clearly dying or dead, she collapsed into Buffy's arms as she sobbed quietly.

Buffy gently lowered Aquarra to the ground as she held the girl until she had cried herself to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Gibberlings

**Chapter 2: Gibberlings**

Aquarra woke up the next day to find the day to be overcast much like her grief for Gorion. She noticed Buffy was sitting watching. "Thank you for letting me sleep."

Buffy smiled. "It is no problem, I felt after last night you deserved a bit of rest. Besides I know what it's like to lose a parent."

"Do you think it's safe to return to where we left my foster father?" Aquarra asked.

Buffy looked in the direction they had come and nodded. "Let me lead the way in case those men are still there, waiting."

Aquarra nodded as she followed Buffy back to the clearing. Upon spotting Gorion's body she rushed to his side. She noticed there was still some signs of life within his body.

It was a ragged, gurgling intake of breath. His wounded side sending brilliant flashes of pain from his waist up to his neck and into the space behind his eyes,

Aquarra tried to say "Father," or something else, but the sound stuck in her throat.

Gorion's eyes wandered, searching blindly, and his left hand fumbled in a pouch at his belt.

"Mine—" Gorion managed to say; just that one, clear word.

"Yes," Aquarra breathed, her throat tightening again to cut off any more words, and her eyes once more filling with tears at the sight of her bleeding, dying father.

Buffy watched and wondered how Gorion had managed to survive the night. She knew that very likely he did not have much time left.

"Stop it," Gorion said, again in an unbelievably clear voice.

He said something else then, something neither Buffy nor Aquarra could make out.

Gorion's hands came up, and Aquarra blearily realized he was working a spell. Gorion touched her roughly, the dying man's hand falling more than reaching Aquarra's side. A wave of warmth washed over Aquarra's midsection, and the burning pain abated all at once. Gorion hissed out a long, pained breath and Aquarra, the wound in her side now closed, almost completely healed, said, "And now you."

Gorion didn't begin another casting. "Last one," the monk croaked out.

Aquarra wanted to spit her anger at her foster father for wasting his single healing prayer.

"You're dying," was all she could say.

"Stop the war... I'm not—"

Gorion's body shuddered with a wracking cough, and his left hand came up with a sudden jerk that made Aquarra flinch. Gorion was holding a tattered scrap of parchment in his hand. Aquarra reached out to catch her father's hand, and Gorion let go of the parchment.

"I'm taking you back to Candlekeep," Aquarra said, shifting noisily in the gravel as she made to lift Gorion in her arms.

"No," the monk grunted, stopping him. "No time. Leave me ... come back for me..." He looked past Aquarra to Buffy. "Protect her."

"With my life," Buffy said as his last breath hissed away and his eyes turned skyward.

"Let me," Buffy said as she began to prepare Gorion's grave. "We'll return and take him to Candlekeep later, I promise."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The rain started as they filled dirt and gravel over the dead body of Gorion, and Aquarra let the rain wash away her tears. When they were done they stood and Aquarra turned her face up toward the cold droplets. She ran one hand through her thick black hair and closed her eyes.

Aquarra adjusted her chain mail tunic, scuffed her leather boots on the gravel to clear away some of the mud, shifted her shoulders to center the weight of the sword that hung from her back, found a stick, and set it upright in the disturbed earth, it would do as a marker till she could return.

"So, Aquarra, how are you holding up?" Buffy wondered as they walked away from the grave.

Aquarra looked at traveling companion and sighed, "I can't believe he's gone."

Buffy sighed and nodded, she understood the feeling for she felt it for her mom not long ago. "He was a good man."

"He was," Aquarra agreed. "Gorion is dead, mysterious assassins are after me, and I can't even imagine how to survive another day."

Buffy looked at Aquarra and smiled at her, "Only one way you can, just take it one day at a time."

"That is some good advice, Buffy. Thank you." Aquarra smiled sadly at Buffy and nodded.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Long after the rain had ended they decided to stop for the night and setup camp. Aquarra pulled out the paper she had took from her father's hand. It read:

 _During the days of the Avatars, the Black Lord will spawn a score of mortal progeny. These offspring will be aligned good and evil, but chaos will flow through them all._

 _When the Murderer's bastard children come of age, they will bring havoc to the lands of the Sword Coast. One of these children must rise above the rest and claim their father's legacy. This inheritor will shape the history of the Sword Coast for centuries to come._

"What are you reading?" Buffy asked as Aquarra handed her the note.

"It's about the Time of Troubles when the gods became mortal and walked Toril," Aquarra said as Buffy read it over. "Why would he have this parchment? It was obviously important to him, as it was clutched in his hand, held there with his last quiver of energy as he lay there dying. "

"I don't know," Buffy said. "But we will find out."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

It was impossible to tell what made the sound that snatched Buffy out of a dream in which she had found Dawn, or how far away the source of it was, but she was on her feet in an instant and waking Aquarra.

"What?" Aquarra said as Buffy put a finger to her lips and made a motion toward the darkness. The sound came again and it was getting closer, and getting closer fast.

It was like a chorus of angry dogs. The sound made Aquarra instantly afraid, she glanced over at Buffy who had a smile on her lips.

"Why are you …" Aquarra whispered.

Buffy shook her head and motioned for quiet as she reached down and picked up her sword off the ground. She looked out into the darkness trying to make out where the noise was coming from. She saw it at first as a mass of shadow, like it was one thing, huge, moving along the ground to the south of the crossroads where they had set up camp. The mass hit a tree—not a huge tree, but sizeable—and seemed to suck it under without hesitating.

Then the mass started to take on shapes inside it, and Buffy realized that this loud gibbering mass was a horde of individual creatures—hundreds of them—that walked like men.

Beside Buffy, Aquarra drew in a breath slowly, her jaw slack so she wouldn't hiss and give herself away.

Buffy saw the glint of steel among the shadows of the horde and realized this mass of creatures were armed. But it also made her realize that if she could see the glint of steel from their weapons, they could see the glint from hers. She slowly and quietly slipped the sword behind her back.

There was a rustle of gravel behind Aquarra and Buffy, on the other side of the crossroads marker.

Buffy tightened her grip on her sword. The sound behind them stopped, but neither Aquarra nor Buffy dared to turn around.

Aquarra nudged Buffy and made a motion of smelling, Buffy did as Aquarra asked and nodded, something was approaching from their left.

Before Buffy even realized what she was doing, she brought her blade back around in front of her as Aquarra picked hers up off the ground.

Buffy twisted her wrist, and slashed low across her left side. The blade met with resistance, with her Slayer improved eyesight she watched it fall to the ground dead.

There was a flurry of babbling, yelling, guttural throat noises that burst into Buffy and Aquarra's hearing right after that though, and they realized there were more, lots more, and they'd seen them.

Rusted, pitted, jagged blades slashed at Aquarra and Buffy and the noise was deafening. They flicked back one attack after another, killed one of the things, then another, all the time keeping their backs against the stone marker.

They kept their blades slashing in front of them to make a sort of wall of steel, but the occasional slice got through. When they killed another one of the screaming, babbling things another stepped on the back of its fallen hordemate and came at them anew. Buffy began to wonder if the reason she hadn't found Dawn, was because her sister was dead due to things like this, which also made her wonder if she wasn't about to join her sister.

There was a subtle change in the tenor of the mass sound and after a few seconds of an altogether different keening wail, the horde turned as one and came north. North, to Aquarra and Buffy.

Buffy and Aquarra kept batting them away, one after another until they were covered in blood, some of it theirs. It seemed like hours, like forever, but only seconds passed before a sudden burst of light blinded them.

There was no noise, no thunder, but they were sure it must have been lightning striking the stone over their heads.

Aquarra screamed in pain and clenched her eyes tight. Tears streamed down her gore-spattered face, and the rhythm of her defensive slashes faltered.

The sound the horde of creatures made in reaction to the light was deafening. They sounded like a whole village being slaughtered at the same time. They stopped attacking, and as through half-closed eyes Buffy and Aquarra saw the horde retreat.

Exhausted and relieved, Aquarra slid down to her knees as did Buffy.

"Good enough," a reedy, gruff voice said, "ye can stop that damn light."

Buffy was instantly alert even though because of the light she could not see much. She sprang to her feet.

"It'll go away on its own, right?" another voice asked. "Let's get a look at our new—our new friends. One of which seems ready to turn the fight to us."

Footsteps came around the stone marker, two sets, and Aquarra stood next to Buffy as the strangers moved in front of them.

One of the newcomers chuckled and said, "How ye fairin', girls?"

Aquarra looked to Buffy who nodded.

"We barely escaped one ambush, had to fight for our lives in a second, care to make it a third?" Buffy asked.

"Ha!" exclaimed one of them, who was clearly a halfling. "We intend no such thing, my lady."

"By all means, no," the other one—a tall, thin human draped in black robes—added. "Rest easy—rest easy."

Buffy and Aquarra studied these two unlikely rescuers. The halfling was odd for his kind, though he was as short, stocky, and fair of complexion as most of his race. He had a devilish quality to him, though. He was wearing thick, reddish-brown leather worked into armor to protect his vitals but cut to leave his arms free. A long sword hung at his side in a gold filigreed scabbard. The halfling wriggled his pug nose and smiled back at their stares.

"G'day, young miss," he said. "Name's Montaron, an' my travellin' companion 'ere is Xzar . . . that's 'im set that godsawful bright light up there to interrupt that little party ye were throwin'."

Buffy and Aquarra nodded to the halfling and turned their attention to the human. The one called Xzar was tall, thin, and twitchy. His face kept moving like there were worms under his skin, and his mouth worked as if he were talking to himself silently all the time. Every once in a while he'd twitch his head violently to one side, as if to shoo away a fly that wasn't really there.

"Gibberlings," the human said, "are not quite at all—" a twitch made him pause "—fond of light... at all."

"Gibberlings?" Buffy repeated, understanding that was the name of the horde of beasts. An apt name for all their incomprehensible vocalizing.

"An' ye are?" the halfling prompted.

"Buffy," Buffy said. "And this is my sister, Aquarra."

Aquarra looked at Buffy puzzled on why Buffy had said she was her sister.

Buffy held out her hand and Montaron took it, his grip was firm, but hers was firmer. He grimaced slightly as Buffy's grip.

Xzar rubbed nervously at his own face, absentmindedly tracing lines around the rather prominent tattooed mask surrounding his eyes. When the halfling's hand fell away, Buffy turned her open palm to Xzar, but the human twitched away from it and made a quarter turn as if to wander off.

"Ye'll 'ave to excuse my friend, there," the halfling said, nodding to Xzar, '"e's not the friendliest sort, but 'em casties he does makes 'im might 'andy in a pinch."

"We should thank you," Aquarra said to the halfling.

"Aye, ye should," Montaron chuckled, "if ye both 'ad any manners. I don't myself, so tend not to expect 'em in others. This road ain't an easy walk. Maybe we could offer ye a chance to return the favor, eh?"

"We're bound for the Friendly Arms," Buffy said, raising her eyebrows to wait for a response.

Xzar grunted, but Montaron only continued to smile blankly.

"Yell find more work in Nashkel," the halfling said.

"Nashkel?" Buffy wondered.

"Aye—" Montaron started when suddenly it was dark again.

The magical light went out all at once and seemed to take the sound of the receding horde of humanoids with it.

"Thank the Lord o' Three Crowns," Montaron said, his voice suddenly edged with a surprising glee, "I was beginning to think that would never fade away. Things are clearer in the dark, ain't they?"

"Anyway," Montaron added, "there's work fer the taking in Nashkel."

"We have business at the Friendly Arms," Aquarra said.

"So ye're not in need o' work?"

"What kind of work?" Aquarra asked.

"The kind o' work I'm guessing ye're in," the halfling said glancing at Buffy and remembering her grip, "an* lot's o' it. Word around the campfires is there's some trouble in the mines there."

"We have to go to the Friendly Arms first," Buffy said flatly. "There are people waiting for us there, but I believe we will be in need of work." She was willing to go with them to the south. Maybe Dawn had wound up in Nashkel. If she didn't look how was she to know for sure?

"So the roadhouse first, then?" Xzar asked matter-of-factly.

"Aye, the Friendly Arms first, then Nashkel," Montaran said. "I could use a night's sleep in a real bed anyway."


	3. Chapter 3: Friendly Arms Inn

**Chapter 3: Friendly Arms**

After spending three days with Montaron and Xzar on the road to the Friendly Arms, Buffy had come to find Xzar irritable because of the way he would speak. He would rearrange and repeat words for no good reason, would remain silent when he should speak and speak when he had nothing useful to say.

For the most part she was able to ignore the twitchy mage for the first day's walk, but when they'd settled into camp, and then Xzar told Aquarra the one thing her traveling companion always wanted to hear.

"I know," Xzar told Aquarra, "who your father—your father is."

Aquarra sat up straight and Montaron, who had been chuckling happily in the darkness went suddenly bone still.

"What did you say?" Aquarra asked, the only way she could think of to ask the man to continue.

"Xzar," Montaron started, then just said, "Xzar..." again.

"Your father," the mage said to Aquarra, ignoring the halfling,

"your father was—"

"Enough!" Montaron said sharply, and the mage spun to lock eyes with him. "Can't ye see the girl's a mite sensitive "bout that?"

"How would you know this?" Buffy asked Xzar,. "You don't even know Aquarra, how could you know her birth father?"

Montaron reached out and put a hand on Xzar's forearm.

The mage jerked away violently.

"She should be happy," Xzar said to no one in particular, "she should be happy to be the daughter of a god—of a god."

Aquarra looked to Buffy sighed. The man was insane.

"She's the daughter of a god?" Buffy asked, anger making her voice tight and quiet.

"Oh," the mage said, his voice dripping condescension, "oh, yes, oh, yes, she most certainly is, as are you."

"My friend," the halfling said to Buffy and Aquarra, "is obviously a madman, but 'e can make fire shoot from 'is fingertips, so I keep 'im around."

"Shut your..." Xzar scolded,"... your... your—they are the daughters of Bhaal."

Buffy shook her head. "You know nothing about us. And second of all I wasn't born on Toril, I was born on Earth. That means Aquarra and I can't have the same father." She looked to Aquarra. "Let's get some sleep."

Aquarra nodded as she and Buffy lay down to go to sleep. Xzar muttered to himself for a little while, his voice eventually fading into the sound of the crickets.

"Buffy and I buried my father," Aquarra said, more for herself than for the delusional mage or the halfling, "the only father I'll ever need, the day I met you two. He was no god, and neither am I."

"An' what if ye were?" Montaron asked, his voice soft on the night's quiet breeze. "What if ye both were?"

Buffy looked up at him, she could tell, thanks to her Slayer eyesight, that the halfling's face was set, serious.

"I'd wish myself a thousand times a thousand pieces of gold, for one," Aquarra answered. This made Montaron laugh. "I'd drop the Sword Coast into the sea just to see it sink and make zombies of everyone who ever spoke ill of me."

"Make me lord o' Waterdeep?" the halfling joked.

"Aye," Aquarra said, mimicking Montaron's peculiar brogue, "ye'll be king o' the world."

The two of them laughed, and when Montaron finally settled

down to sleep he said, "Sometimes, lass, things 'ave a way o' surprisin' ye."

"Yes," Aquarra said, yawning, "they do at that."

Buffy sighed as she laid back down. She knew what she would wish for. She looked over at Aquarra who met her eyes. They both knew what she would wish for. To find Dawn, and then to return home.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

As they approached the Friendly Arms the sight of it surprised them. It had been a rather well-built fortress in its day, now it was a little village as much as it was a fortress. Within the high curtain walls of gray stone was a collection of buildings devoted to any number of purposes but all serving travelers in one way or another.

They approached the front gate and a heavy wooden drawbridge was lowered over a moat.

Coming in from the south they could see that the moat didn't make it all the way around the keep yet, and there were teams of diggers and other laborers halfheartedly wandering about. The moat was a new addition, then, and certainly more for show than for defense.

They passed over the drawbridge and made their way with no wasted time from the pillared entrance to one of the biggest buildings in the broad, open bailey. The sound of revelry leaking into the early evening air told them that this was the inn proper. It was a long walk to the high oaken door, and as they crossed the bailey they passed a group of gnome guards. The sight of the tiny fighters made Aquarra smile.

Buffy noticed a sudden change in the tavern sounds.

Montaron stopped too and held out a hand to gently block Xzar.

The mage twitched away and shouted, "Stop touching me!"

"Shhh," the halfling warned as the gnome guards began moving slowly toward the inn.

There were pauses in the steady sound of laughter and frivolity, that was what first alerted the guards, then came loud cheers, a crash, and breaking glass followed by a loud grunt.

Montaron laughed and said, "Sounds like my kind o' place!"

Buffy, Aquarra and their two travelling companions followed the gnome guards to the door. Buffy and Aquarra stood behind the gnomes as one of them opened the door, and they were hit with the blast of sound from inside just a fraction of a second before the chair hit Buffy in the face. Down Buffy went, never seeing the three little gnomes wade into the crowd. The guards' fists were small, but when they brought them into play at their own eye level, taller men dropped like sacks of flour.

Buffy, angry, bleeding from the nose, stood up, grabbed the broken chair, and surveyed the dark room full of doubled-over men. She gave up hope of finding the one who threw the chair, but she gave the room an icy glare all the same. Laughter started, and Buffy realized they were laughing at the man being carried out by the three gnomes. They were dragging the dirty, vile-smelling commoner more than carrying him, and the big man made a small sound every time his head bounced against the rough wooden planks of the floor.

A gnome woman climbed up on top of the bar and called to the room, "Next one throws a chair gets my fist in his danglies. This—" and she paused long enough to belch resoundingly— "is a classy establishment."

A cheer followed this warning, and the crowded room fell back into the general chaos of a night at the Friendly Arms.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Across the room Jaheira had been watching the door with a worried look on her face. Gorion and Aquarra were late; it was unlike Gorion to ever be late. She sighed as she looked towards her husband. "Maybe we should head for Candlekeep."

"What if they arrive here and find us g-gone?" Khalid asked.

Jaheira sighed and knew that Khalid was right, "Then wait we shall."

Then she spotted the group that had come in behind the gnomes, 'Too many,' she thought. For as far as she knew Gorion and Aquarra would be traveling alone not with three companions. Add on to that fact that Gorion was not to be seen in the group.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy looked at the people in the tavern and then back at the group behind her. "I will find us rooms. Aquarra maybe you should try and find Gorion's friends he mentioned."

Montaron and Xzar left the little group to find a dark booth, in a corner while they waited. Aquarra headed of on her own as Buffy headed for the gnome that had hoped on top of the bar.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Khalid smiled as he spotted Aquarra making her way through the crowd. "Dearest isn't that?" He pointed to Aquarra.

Jaheira took a look at the woman he pointed at and smiled. "I believe you may be correct. She does look like the description Gorion gave us of Aquarra," she said. She walked over to Aquarra followed by Khalid. "Greetings. You ... you look familiar, though it's not your looks. I am not sure what I expected, but I believe you are Gorion's child."

Aquarra turned slightly to her right and looked at Jaheira. "I am she. Would you be Jaheira and Khalid who my foster father told me to meet here?"

It was evident that both Jaheira and Khalid were half-elves. Their long, thin faces and ears just barely too round to be called pointed would have been proof enough of that, but the bright violet of Khalid's eyes was a sure sign of elf blood.

"We are," Jaheira said.

"Good to know you," Khalid said.

"Come sit with us, we are old friends of your adopted father. He is not with you? I must assume the worst; he would not permit his only child to wander without his accompaniment," Jaheira said.

Khalid smiled sadly. "If... if he has passed, we share your loss."

"Gorion often said that he worried for your safety, even at the expense of his own," Jaheira paused for a moment as if deciding to continue or not as Aquarra sat down at the table.

"Why was I sent here?" Aquarra asked them both, though she continued to look at Jaheira. "My father didn't live to tell me."

"How did Gorion die?" Jaheira asked.

"Sellswords," Aquarra said, "We were ambushed on the Way of the Lion. My father killed all but one of the men who attacked us but not soon enough."

"There are forces that didn't want us to meet," Khalid said, "Gorion knew that. It was…" he hesitated, "it was why Gorion wanted you to come with him to meet us."

"My father was a monk," Aquarra said, "a priest, a man of letters and such. What could he have been caught up in that would set such forces against him? What are you people about?"

"There are … forces," Jaheira said, her voice barely audible in the crowded room, "who want to bring war. Anyways he also wished that Khalid and I would become your guardians, if he should ever meet an untimely end. However, you are much older now, and the choice of your companions should be your own."

"We could t-travel with you until you get settled; help you find your lot in life," Khalid said.

"It would be a fitting last service to Gorion, though we should first go to Nashkel. Khalid and I ... look into local concerns, and there are rumors of strange things happening at the mine. No doubt you have heard of the iron shortage? You would do well to help us. It affects everyone, including you. We are to meet the mayor of the town, Berrun Ghastkill," Jaheira said.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Suddenly a glass bottle disintegrated against the back of Buffy's head. She wiped the residual wine off the back of her head as she picked the glass from her hair. She turned to find at the door was the man who'd been dragged out by the three gnome guards whom had thrown the chair at her earlier.

"What," The drunk said as Buffy walked across the room and while she was loath to do it as she hated harming humans. She hit him square in the face. The force of it knocked the man over and before his head hit the floor he was unconscious.

"Wait!" called a familiar voice.

The gnome woman at the bar let out a shrill whistle, and the serving girls stopped. The voice had been Montaron's.

"Thief!" the halfling called again.

Montaron was kneeling over the body of the drunk and producing one purse after another from the man's pants.

"He must have been picking pockets all ni—here's mine!" Montaron said, his voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Buffy gave the man not another thought as she made her way over to Buffy.

"Fortunate for you," Khalid whispered to Buffy when she rejoined them. "It would have been assault otherwise."

Jaheira nodded as Buffy sat at the table. "Now Aquarra who is your friend?"

"My name is Buffy Summers," Buffy said. She looked to Aquarra. "I take it these are the two Gorion said you were to meet?"

Aquarra looked to Buffy and nodded. "This is Jaheira and Khalid."

"I was in Candlekeep when Gorion and Aquarra were preparing to leave and Gorion graciously allowed me to accompany him and Aquarra," Buffy said.

Jaheira nodded and looked at Buffy. "And if you don't mind me asking? What were you doing in Candlekeep?"

"Looking for a way home, you see I fell through a portal from another world." Buffy said. "The portal actually opened inside Candlekeep about 6 months ago. Through the wards of the library somehow. Gorion was kind enough to allow me to remain and helped me in researching for a way to return to our home. But I can't go just yet. My sister also fell through the portal, when we reached this side she must have been transported somewhere else on Toril. I have to find her. And since I don't know your world very well and I heard that Aquarra and Gorion were preparing to leave, I asked if I could tag along since we are unfamiliar with your world. At first Gorion was hesitant…"

Aquarra nodded. "But I talked him into it. You see there are assassins after me; Buffy saved my life from one such person. So I asked my foster father to allow Buffy to come with us, he consented."

"Then I am pleased to have met you, Buffy." Jaheira smiled as Montaron and Xzar walked up beside them.

"Do we have rooms?" Montaron asked.

Buffy nodded and handed a key to the halfling, "Yes, third floor."

Montaron nodded as he turned and headed up the stairs with Xzar.

"More strangers?" Jaheira said.

"We encountered them on the road here. With what happened to Gorion, Aquarra and I both decided that there would be strength in numbers and so we allowed them to come along." Buffy said.

Jaheira nodded. "A sound idea. So?"

Aquarra looks between Jaheira and Khalid and then slowly nodded, "Of course I would be happy to have you along."

Jaheira smiled. "Well good! We'll leave as soon as you're ready, though it should be soon."

"Of course. We'll leave as soon as Buffy is ready." Aquarra said as she looked towards Buffy.

Jaheira nodded as she looked the blonde over. "So you are leading the party?"

Buffy shook her head and smiled slightly. "More of a joint thing. I defer when decisions need to be made to Aquarra, since she is more familiar with your world than I am. But I do lead otherwise. I swore to Gorion before we left Candlekeep that I would protect, Aquarra. At least till I find Dawn. At this point I want to make sure Aquarra is safe before Dawn and I return to Candlekeep to finish looking for a way home."

"I take it then you are skilled in combat?" Jaheira said noting the sword at Buffy's hip.

"That I am, in fact where I'm from I am called the Vampire Slayer, or the Slayer for short." Buffy said.

Jahiera looked at Buffy and smiled. "A worthwhile title I am sure. Then Khalid and I too will follow your lead."

Buffy led Dawn, Willow, Aquarra, Jaheira and Khalid upstairs the passed a man, who Jaheira said was a dwarf.

"Have you heard? There's a rogue ogre with a belt fetish to the south of the Friendly Arm Inn. I had to bargain my new girdle of piercing for my life, out there. Wasn't even interested in an autographed copy of my book. Hey, if you can get that belt back to me, I'd be mighty grateful." The dwarf had said.

Buffy nodded, "If we meet this ogre and retrieve your belt we will be sure to bring it back to you."

Unshey smiled and said his thanks as the group went on up the stairs to the third floor where they were approached by one of their neighbors.

"Hey, I've got a teeny bit of a spider infestation happening in my cellar in Beregost. I was on my way to the Gate to get some poison but this would be a lot easier on my legs, to be honest. You'll know the house when you see it. It's right to the west of the Jovial Juggler Inn. Bring back their bodies to prove you've done the job and I'll give you 100 gp. If you could, please bring my husband's old boots and my ol' bottle of wine back as well, and I'll throw in something extra."

Buffy sighed and nods, "Sure no problem, if were in Beregost we will stop by your house, and clear it out for you."


	4. Chapter 4: Nashkel

**Chapter 4: Nashkel**

"We won't be the only ones trying to help," Jaheira told Buffy and Aquarra as they walked the seemingly endless miles to Nashkel.

"I'd say not," Montaron piped in.

Jaheira spun on the stout halfling, obviously not appreciating this intrusion any more than she'd appreciated the numerous others from both Montaron and Xzar over the last seven and a half days.

Montaron only smiled at her and said, "Sun's bright t'day, eh girl?"

"This iron shortage," Jaheira continued, trying to ignore Montaron, "could well lead to war between my people and yours, Aquarra."

Aquarra stopped, and the others hesitated in their steps, but all except Jaheira and Buffy continued on.

"My people?" Aquarra asked.

"Amn, and . . ." she stopped, realizing she wasn't sure where Aquarra was from. "Gorion was from Candlekeep. He raised you as his daughter there, yes?"

"He did," Aquarra said.

"Then perhaps . . ." she started again. "Well, a war between Amn and Baldur's Gate, for one ... with Candle-keep caught in the middle."

"Candlekeep can take care of itself," Aquarra stated simply. She turned and started walking again, but slowly, with Jaheira and Buffy on either side of her.

They came upon the ogre in short time not far off the road. And due to the sheer numbers of their group they had no problems dispatching the ogre

"This guy was a total pushover," Aquarra said. "I don't know what that Unshey guy was thinking when he said this guy was tough."

Jaheira smiled and nodded. "That is because he was alone, and it was easier for us because of the group. six against one is fairly good odds in our favor."

"I know it's several hours out of our way but do we want to hold on to the belt and return it later or return it now?" Buffy asked.

Aquarra thought for a moment and then nodded. "You wanted to go to Baldur's Gate if memory serves me right. And that is to the north. Yet we agreed to accompany Montaron and Xzar to Nashkel. So we will go there first and then return north and drop off the belt on the way to Baldur's Gate."

Buffy nodded as she held up the two belts they pulled off the ogre, "Sounds like a plan. Now which one belongs to Unshey?"

Jaheira cast a quick spell of identify. "The belt on the left is a girdle of gender. It should be disposed of as soon as possible. The girdle of gender will magically change your gender. And nothing short of a remove curse will allow you to take it off once donned."

"Ok then, when we next make camp we'll burn it. That means the other one has to be Unshey's belt. When we return this way, I'll return it to him." Buffy said.

And so they continued on to the south.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy was several paces behind her companions as she surveyed each and every one of them. Montaron would glance back at them from time to time, apparently feeling left out or, for reasons known only to himself, afraid. Khalid walked purposefully onward and spoke little. Xzar kept swatting at something though there were few if any insects about. The mage muttered to himself constantly, though since Jaheira had joined them, Buffy was distracted enough by her not to be troubled by Xzar.

In fact Buffy was so distracted she was not sure what was up with that. Since Jaheira had joined them she had found Jaheira very beautiful and even found herself daydreaming about Jaheira, or rather fantasizing about Jaheira. She had never considered herself gay by any measure. After all she had loved both Angel and Riley, both of whom were definitely men. She wondered if coming through the portal had altered her somehow. She would never know at least not for sure. For once she found Dawn, she and her sister would return home and away from Jaheira. Even if they wound up staying for any length of time, Jaheira was after all married which made any such thoughts of a gay relationship left in the realm of daydreams.

Buffy distracted herself away from her thoughts of Jaheira by looking at Montaron, and Xzar, who were headed for Nashkel to seek work guarding the iron mines there. For Jaheira and Khalid, there seemed to be some more noble cause.

"The way I see it," Buffy said, "someone is deliberately sabotaging the iron supply at Nashkel."

"And other mines," Jaheira added.

Montaron turned around. "An' what o' that, fair Jaheira," the halfling asked. "Let 'em sabotage away, I say, an' when we get there, we'll find the culprit an' turn 'im in fer a great, 'uge reward."

Jaheira didn't even acknowledge Montaron as she passed.

"Reward?" Buffy asked.

"Sure, lass," Montaron said, clapping Buffy on the forearm, "what'd ye think we were walkin' fer a tenday an' three fer, justice?"

Jaheira spun on the halfling and spat, "What would you know of justice, thief?"

Montaron's eyes hardened for just a fraction of a second, and Jaheira took a step back. As if sensing the confrontation, Aquarra and Khalid stopped and turned but made no move to approach. Buffy kept her eyes on the halfling.

"Easy, lass," Montaron said, chuckling. "It's all just business, ain't it?"

"And what business are you in, Montaron?" Jaheira asked.

"If ye're talkin' about those purses at the Friendly Arms," he said jovially, "maybe ye should thank me fer gettin' the girl out o' there."

"Getting the girl out o' there?" Khalid asked, his voice nearly lost to the breeze and a squawking crow.

Montaron looked at him and smiled.

"Sure," he said, "an' us all."

"Sleep lightning," Xzar suddenly shouted, "lightning sleep."

Buffy, Aquarra, Montaron, Jaheira, and Khalid all looked in the direction of the babbling mage. Xzar was nearly fifty yards ahead of them now, obviously oblivious to the conversation.

Buffy laughed first and Montaron, then Aquarra and Khalid joined her, but a silent Jaheira was the first to march off after Xzar.

"Thank you for that, by the way," Buffy said to Montaron.

"Not at all, lass," Montaron said, "ye'll repay me, I'm sure."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Soon they had arrived at the village of Beregost. Buffy looked at it as they entered. She could tell it was at least the size of Candlekeep if not larger.

Imoen smiled as she watched Buffy, "Well here we are! Beregost. Whatcha think?"

Buffy shook her head, "Not seen enough of it yet to tell you. Though I think we need to find a shop that sells weapons. Montaron's sword has crumbled to dust. I would rather that not happen again in the middle of another fight."

Jaheira nodded in agreement, "That is agreed. Tomorrow though, I think we all need a good night's rest. And since we're here we should check out Landrin's home."

"Agreed," Buffy said.

They slept in real beds at an inn Montaron insisted on paying for. And the next they rose and headed for the weapon shop. What money they had saved up from selling loot was not able to purchase them much. Buffy got the only good sword that could be bought with what meager amount of the gold they had.

As they left the weapon shop Buffy promised them on the return trip from Nashkel they would stop by again and see what else they could get.

They walked south towards Landrin's house as Jaheira talked with Aquarra, "Had Gorion ever shown you much of the forests and taught you about Nature? Feel free to ask me any questions you have about them, anytime you wish. Actually, when the party is going through the forests, I would rather you ask me for advice or let me lead."

"What is the most reliable and nutritious forest fare to be had, if I run out of provisions?" Aquarra asked.

Jaheira nods, "Grubs, no question. And roasted, they're tasty: think of nuts with a creamy center."

Then entered Landrin's house and fought three incredibly large spiders, about as large as a dog. During the fight Montaron was poisoned by one of the spiders causing them to make a side trip to the local temple for healing before heading south once again.

Their stay there seemed all too short, and it was a relief for all of them when they finally entered the mining town of Nashkel.

Aquarra didn't know if it was good luck or bad that there seemed to be some kind of festival going on in a fallow field outside town. On their way south Buffy and Aquarra heard nothing but bad news from Jaheira and Khalid — even from Montaron — that made them think Nashkel would have been some kind of ghost town by the time they got there.

Instead the small town was alive with color. Carts were set up in every available space, and traveling merchants were showing their wares. There were soldiers in the street, dressed in the colors of Amn.

"We should find an inn," Khalid said. "We can get a good night's sleep and head to the mines in the morning."

Buffy nodded and she and Jaheira followed him into a crowd of festival goers.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

As they entered the inn Buffy made her way through the crowd toward the innkeeper. She found herself invariably bumped by someone. She looked and spotted a red-headed woman walking away from her. "Willow?" she said causing the woman to stop. "Willow Rosenberg."

The woman turned and looked Buffy in the eye and smiled. It was indeed Willow.

Buffy ran to her friend and pulled Willow into an embrace. "How?" she asked.

"I don't know," Willow said. "One moment I was in Sunnydale at the battle with Glory the next moment I was here."

Buffy smiled. "At least Dawn and I aren't alone, here."

"Dawn's here?" Willow asked.

"Possibly," Buffy said with a sigh. "She and I fell off the tower together as it collapsed beneath us. I held her close to me as we fell into the portal. I haven't seen her since arriving. In fact you're the first person from our world I have seen."

"If she is here, Buffy," Willow said. "We'll find her, I promise."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Aquarra wandered the festival grounds. At first the festival did a good job of masking the problems that were becoming more obvious to Aquarra as she walked on. There were merchant carts, sure, and the people of Nashkel were stopping to look, but almost no one was buying. The men looked nervous and the women serious.

"They're pourin' ale," Montaron said from behind Aquarra, "are ye with me?"

Aquarra turned, as amused as she was amazed at the halfling's ability to appear and disappear at will in crowds. "There is something wrong, isn't there?" she asked.

"If ye mean with the iron mines," Montaron answered, "aye."

"So where is our employer? Who pays us to protect these mines?"

Montaron smiled and shrugged.

"We'll go to the mines tomorrow an' find out. In the meantime," the halfling said, producing a worn leather pouch from a pocket inside his shirt, " 'ere's a bit o' coin. While away this festival a bit, then join me at the inn fer an ale er seven."

"I can't take that money."

"It's been feedin' ye since the Friendly Arms," Montaron reminded her, not expecting Aquarra to feel guilty. "Take it an' see what ye can find—fer the common good."

The halfling nodded at a particular merchant's cart, laughed, and disappeared into the crowd once more.

Aquarra studied the cart and its proprietor. The merchant noticed Aquarra looking at him and spread a huge, gap-toothed grin across his face in a practiced greeting.

"Potions," the man called, "elixirs, drafts, and ointments for every ill and every eventuality."

Aquarra approached, the little purse still in her hand jingling with the weight of coin.

"Ah, my good lass," the merchant said, "I see you have a need."

Aquarra was legitimately confused by this and said, "Indeed? And what need have I?"

The merchant laughed, "You fight," he said, then looked Aquarra up and down appreciatively, "and fight well, to be sure. You will guard yourself well but still fall victim to the lucky stab or slash here and there, I'm sure. One sip of this" —he lifted a plain silver vial from the collection spread across his cart— "and you'll be feeling no pain."

"Four coppers an ale will do the same."

"Ah," the merchant said, his smile not faltering for a moment, "ah yes indeed, lass, but in the morning the cut is still there—treated only with ale that is—but this beauty will make it all go away. The secret is lost to the ages, but it can be yours, for a price."

"The secret or the draft?"

"Ah, the draft, of course, lass," the merchant said, then glanced at the little pouch in Aquarra's hand, "unless you've a bigger purse elsewhere."

Aquarra laughed and came closer still. She asked about some of the other vials and heard tales no sane person would believe.

"Acid?" Aquarra asked, not understanding the word.

"Aye," the merchant said. "This is a dangerous concoction indeed—like liquid fire it burns—a creation of the mad geniuses of Netheril, for sale today for what an honest lass such as yourself can afford."

Exactly what an honest person could afford ended up being a matter of some debate, and it was nearly an hour before Aquarra walked back into the crowd with the small leather pouch now containing a small silver vial, a slightly larger glass one, and four coppers.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Late that night in the room Jaheira and Khalid shared, Khalid awoke to find Jaheira sitting by the window, "Dearest?"

"I am worried about…" Jaheira said quietly.

"I know dear," Khalid replied as he made his way over to Jaheira. "We knew there was the possibility that he would not get the chance to tell her. To tell either of them."

Jaheira nodded and sighed. "Do you think Gorion told Aquarra anything about her past? She does appear not to know. What about Buffy? Do you think he told her of the test he conducted on her after her arrival in our realm?"

"I think Gorion was most likely waiting to get to the Friendly Arms," said Khalid. "Where they likely would not have been overheard. He may have wanted to tell them both at the same time."

"But then he died before he had the chance." Jaheira murmured a small prayer to Silvanus for Gorion's spirit. "I believe we should tell them and soon."

"I don't think the time is right," said Khalid thoughtfully. "While they both allow us to accompany them, they are quite safe. We should let them discover the truth of their parentage themselves."

Together they made their way back to bed.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The next morning after introducing Willow to everyone they went, at Jaheira's request, to meet Berrun the mayor of Nashkel.

"Hello there! I recognize Jaheira in your group, so you must be the adventurers I was expecting. I am Berrun Ghastkill, mayor of Nashkel, and I am happy to welcome you. I am sorry we had to meet under these circumstances." Berrun said.

"What exactly is the trouble here?" Buffy asked.

"I can't believe you haven't guessed. Have you heard of the iron shortage?"

"We've heard," Buffy said.

Berrun nodded. "Well, Nashkel is in the thick of it. Our mine is all but shut down because the workers continually go missing, and what ore we do get is tainted somehow. I would send in the town guards, but we need them to protect our citizens from the bandits that raid our caravans. We need you to find out what is wrong in the mines southeast of town."

Aquarra spoke up from behind Buffy, "We will do what we can."

Berrun smiled, "Thank you. You will be the toast of the town if you can help."

"Onwards we march then, Buffy. As this is your first mission in our world, I fear my skills as a healer will be heavily tested. Nevertheless, I will try and return all of us to Berrun still in one piece and victorious." Jaheira said.

Buffy smiled and nodded, "That is much appreciated, Jaheira."

They then turned and headed towards the mine.


	5. Chapter 5: Mines

**Chapter 5: Mines**

"Oh, please, girl," Montaron whined, "I ain't gonna poison ye, fer Urogalan's sake."

Jaheira only grunted in response, but Khalid reached for the wineskin the halfling was offering. He held it gingerly to his nose as if it might explode.

The Amnian sniffed, then shrugged and said, "Smells like ale."

"An' ale it is, my friend," Montaron said. "Go ahead . . . fer luck's sake."

Khalid smiled and looked at Willow, Buffy, Xzar and Aquarra. The mage and Aquarra had each downed sizeable quaffs of Montaron's special ale, and both were still standing, none the worse for wear.

"Khalid—" Jaheira started to say but stopped when Khalid lifted the skin to his lips and drank. He held the liquid in his mouth for a second or two before swallowing, then closed his eyes as it slid down.

When he opened them again, he said, "Go ahead, Jaheira, Willow, Buffy make the halfling happy. Maybe there is something to rituals like these."

"We're goin' into Oghma only knows what 'ere, girls," Montaron added, "an' a little luck won't 'urt ye."

"Lucky ale," Jaheira scoffed but took the skin and drank from it quickly, just wanting to get it over with. She proceeded to hand it to Buffy.

Buffy hesitated as she looked at the skin in her hands and then she too drank from it quickly before handing it to Willow who did the same.

"Can we go now?" Aquarra asked.

They'd been walking all morning from Nashkel and hadn't made it to the mines yet. Montaron stopped them where a thin strip of brown mud led off from the main path. He claimed it was a shortcut, and that it would get them to the mines in no time. Drinking "lucky ale" was a silly ritual he claimed to have observed whenever his path led toward danger.

Willow gave the halfling his wineskin back, and the seven of them headed down the path. The coarse grass that bordered the main path gave way to a deep field of black wild-flowers. The field was solid with them.

Buffy was sure as she looked at the flowers that was something strange about them. They were all so alike, and there were so many of them, and there was something about them that just seemed out of place.

"Follow me very carefully, all," Montaron said, his voice low and serious.

"For luck?" Jaheira teased. "Or are you afraid of damaging the pretty flowers."

Buffy leaned down to pick one. She meant to give it to Jaheira, even imagined gently sliding it behind one of her slim, pointed ears, brushing back her jet black hair and—

"This is your garden," Khalid said, "isn't it Montaron?"

"What are you doing?" Willow whispered to Buffy, making her friend stop.

Buffy blushed and straightened, embarrassed. "Nothing," she whispered back.

"There're dangers all about, my Amnian friend," Montaron told Khalid. "Even in a field o' pretty black flowers, though they might be a bit less temptin' in the dark."

The halfling was silent for a moment, walking carefully with his eyes glued to the ground in front of him. He was leading them through the field of flowers in a twisting, nonsensical path.

At the back of the group walked Buffy and Willow.

"So, Will, what did you do for the half a year you were here?" Buffy asked.

"I got a job as an entertainer," Willow replied. "I performed simple magic tricks, well simple for these people anyways who live with the fact that magic is part of their everyday lives. Of course I was saving up to head south to Amn. Once there I intended to find a way to return home."

"Why Amn?" Buffy wondered.

"Well Nashkel is from I heard in their realm of influence and everyone there said go to Amn, not Balder's Gate. I guess you intended to head for Balder's Gate?"

Buffy nodded. "Yes. It was closer to Candlekeep than Amn was, or so I was told anyways. Then I met Gorion when I fell out of the portal. I met Aquarra the day before she and Gorion were to set out. I asked to go along since I didn't know where anything was or the dangers that might lie beyond the gates of Candlekeep."

"Damn sun," Montaron said.

Buffy, Willow and Aquarra looked and saw for the first time that an old, dilapidated farmhouse stood in the center of the field of black flowers.

Buffy sighed at the sight of the house, thinking of the family that once lived there and thinking of her own home and wondering where in this world was her sister.

"Gods!" Montaron exclaimed and drew up short. The others stopped. Jaheira actually bumped into Aquarra's back.

"What is it?" Buffy asked Montaron.

"A body," Xzar said simply, "a body that is dead."

Buffy followed Xzar's gaze as she stepped forward, crushing a couple of the flowers. Montaron flinched when he saw that. She looked down at the body at Montaron's feet. The man had been dead for days, but there was still very little decay.

Willow stepped up beside her friend and she too looked at the body. She saw there were no flies and found that most peculiar as a body lying dead in the open for days tended to attract flies. The dead man was human. The man's eyes were white, going to gray-green. His tongue was sticking out, swollen and black.

There was no blood or obvious wounds.

"What killed this man?" Aquarra asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Poison, yes?" Xzar offered, avoiding eye contact with Aquarra, as always.

Aquarra nodded, seeing the truth in it.

Montaron knelt over the man and started running his hands along the dead soldier's belt.

"Montaron!" Jaheira gasped. "Leave him in peace, can't you?"

"She's right, Montaron," Aquarra said. "Leave him."

Montaron ignored them, standing and turning around only when he'd found something.

"Keys?" Buffy asked when she saw what the halfling was holding in his hands. There was a whole set of them, half a dozen big brass keys on a simple iron ring.

"If you can find out where this man lived," Khalid said, sneering, "you'll be a rich man for sure, thief."

Montaron smiled and looked over his shoulder at the collapsing farmhouse.

"Close enough?" he said.

Buffy frowned and with the speed and strength of a Slayer she ripped the keys from Montaran's hands. "Leave it," she said, "and him. We started this trip by heading for the mines, and now we're going to get to those mines."

Buffy turned, handed the keys to Willow—who pocketed them—and walked on, and Montaron let Buffy lead the way only as long as it took for him to exchange a long, knowing glance with Xzar. The mage nodded and followed.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy had been in many underground places as the Slayer; sewers, electrical service tunnels and even some caves. But she had never been in a mine before, but this one was much as she'd expected. The tunnel was simple, square, with a low ceiling held up at intervals of fifteen or twenty feet by large wooden supports. The walls were rough cut into solid rock from the entrance in the side of a deep mine pit. The mining complex was only a couple hours' walk from the field of black flowers.

When they'd emerged from Montaron's shortcut path, they'd stumbled into a group of tired looking miners heading back toward Nashkel with picks and shovels but no cart of ore.

The miners gave them only a passing glance. A group of Amnian soldiers didn't so much guard as hang around the steps leading into the mine. A big, sooty, dark-skinned man looked to be in charge of the place. He scowled at the soldiers with obvious irritation, and the youthful Amnian sergeant tried not to notice.

"There is definitely something wrong here," Aquarra said later, her voice echoing in the mine tunnel.

"Aye, lass," Montaron's equally resonant voice answered from the gloom behind him, "an' that big fat Emerson fella's willin' to pay to have a stop put to it."

When they had first arrived at the pit, Emerson, the mine boss, had reached into an ore cart and produced a fist-size lump of gray-brown rock. He squeezed it, and it crumbled to dust. The boss cursed loudly and threw the handful of worthless iron dust to the dry ground where it mixed with more of the same. He turned his back on the cart and walked away. The miners who had been standing around the cart looked no happier than their foreman, but their faces were also tainted by the unmistakable look of panic.

That dust was once their sole livelihood.

"He doesn't have to pay us for our help, Montaron," Jaheira said. "This mine means life to these people."

"Aye, lass," Montaron chuckled, "an' there're few things as 'spensive as life."

Emerson had eyed them carefully, making note of their features and dress, before he let them into the mine tunnel. He held little hope that this hole in the ground, which was once the lifeblood of Nashkel, would ever be mined again.

"You're a true humanitarian Montaron," Khalid said sarcastically. Only Montaron laughed at the comment.

"They'll live," the halfling said, his voice as confident as it was disappointed.

"This way," Xzar said, louder than he may have intended to. "This way, yes? This way."

Montaron nodded and made to follow Xzar. Aquarra took one step to follow them both, but a light touch from Jaheira stopped her.

"Why this way?" Buffy asked, glancing meaningfully down the other passage that formed the Y-intersection at which they stood.

"No reason," Montaron said, and shrugged. "One way's as good as any, no?"

"This way," Xzar said, "for sure."

Montaron sighed and looked at his friend.

The mage nodded furiously and said, "This way, Montaron, yes?"

"As good as any?" Jaheira asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"How do you know these tunnels?" Khalid asked, taking a threatening step forward. Aquarra looked at Montaron, curious to hear the answer.

"My friend 'ere is a mage," the halfling offered, "an' as such is... sensitive to this kind o' thing, eh?"

"And am I am a witch," Willow said. "How is it he is sensitive to this kind of thing, when I sense nothing?"

"What kind of thing?" Jaheira wondered. "Poisoning iron mines?"

"Poisoning iron?" Aquarra had to ask. "How could such a silly thing be done?"

"Ask your little friend here," Khalid accused.

"If ye'd like to go down the other passage so badly, Amnian," Montaron said, trying with obvious difficulty to remain civil, "then let us go, but not before we ask ye why ye're so set to go that way."

"Accuse us," Jaheira said sternly. "Go ahead, accuse Amn. This mine supplies—supplied—Amn as well as Baldur's Gate, but I think we all know who's who here, halfling."

Montaron smiled and nodded, "I'm gettin' that idea, young missus."

"This is none of mine or Buffy's concern," Aquarra said, "and surely of no interest to Gorion, who was no miner or ironmonger or blacksmith. Why are we here at all?"

"To stop a war," Jaheira told Aquarra, though her eyes never left the halfling.

Montaron turned and walked several steps down the darkening tunnel with Xzar in tow.

"Bring back the proof," he said, his voice echoing loudly in the confined space, "an' there'll be reward enough in both Baldur's Gate an' Amn."

Xzar muttered something, and a small spot of yellow light appeared above his head, following him as he strode swiftly down the passage. They waited until Montaron turned to see if they were following before they followed. They made no secret that they came along only under duress.

It was only a short minute later when Xzar abruptly stopped. The mage bent at the waist, and the ball of light followed him down, staying only inches over the top of his head the whole way. The flash of reflected light drew their attention to a small silver vial on the tunnel floor.

Xzar took it between thumb and index finger and picked it up slowly, gingerly, as if he were lifting a dead mouse from a trap.

"Amnian," Xzar said, holding the vial out to Buffy, "yes?"

"There it is," Montaron said, "the proof, just sittin' 'ere on the floor fer any fool—no offense, Xzar—to see. Amnian make, fer certain."

"What is this?" Jaheira asked harshly.

"Amnian," Xzar said, shaking and bringing his hands up.

"Nithrik glah—" the mage started to mumble.

Buffy grabbed the mage's hands and said, "Stop it Xzar!"

The mage looked at Buffy with fiery anger in his eyes and shrieked, "Don't touch me!"

Montaron drew his sword, and Buffy let the mage's hands fall away and grabbed for her own sword. By the time blade came out of its sheath Buffy could see that the halfling had drawn not on her but on Jaheira and Khalid.

Aquarra and Willow stood back watching the scene unfold, this was an unexpected turn of events. Neither of them thought that either Jaheira or Khalid had anything to do with the poisoning of the iron. They watched as Jaheira and Khalid too drew their weapons, and Xzar seemed ready enough to begin another casting as Willow prepared a spell herself.

"Amnian treachery," Montaron spat. "Ye saw all the vial, just like the one ye bought from the vendor in Nash, Aquarra—" and the halfling stopped abruptly and looked at Aquarra.

"What vial I bought in Nashkel?" Aquarra asked, as her hand went to her sword.

Xzar twitched, and his hands came up. Buffy reacted fast, but maybe it was something in the unnatural magic light, or the gradual downward slope of the passageway, or the still, dusty air, but she wasn't fast enough. Khalid was coming in with his sword, and by instinct Buffy batted the blade away and sliced back. She felt her blade sink into the Amnian's midsection, and there was an echoing cry that might have been either Khalid or Jaheira, maybe both.

Xzar mumbled something, Montaron said, "No!"

Blood splashed in Buffy's face, and she closed her eyes for just a second. Her timing was fortunate because at that exact moment Xzar's magical light grew brighter, and Aquarra, Willow, Jaheira and Montaron all cursed. Buffy felt Khalid fall, her sword still stuck in his side. She knelt quickly next to him as she whispered almost too low to hear, "I'm sorry."

Aquarra was knocked aside as the air burst from her lungs, and she stumbled backward.

"After her!" Montaron screamed, and Aquarra, blinking to clear his vision from the blood, and the blow to the groin, followed by Willow.

As the footsteps of the halfling and the Willow faded into the echoing distance of the dark mine, Buffy tried to comfort Khalid. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to."

Aquarra looked at Buffy with understanding that Buffy if she could prevent it did not kill humans or other humanoids, and that it had only been accident when she had turned on Khalid.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Willow could see that the light spell she had cast bothered Montaron. The halfling protested when she had cast it, but they hadn't gone very far from the muttering mage before she couldn't see at all. She wondered if the stories back home were true here on Toril and that elves could see in the dark, which made her guess that Jaheira likely had enough elf blood in her to be able to see in the dark. Montaron was not only able to see in the dark, he very vocally preferred it to any level of illumination.

There were more side tunnels—lots more—than Willow expected, and she was beginning to realize she would be lucky to find her way back to the entrance, let alone find Jaheira.

"Forget it... lass . . ." Montaron said as he stopped. He doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping. "She's... gone."

Willow wiped her sweating brow with one forearm and nodded, though she hated to admit defeat. That was when she smelled something that wasn't there before. It was a smell like a wet dog, and there was wet leather... sweat maybe.

"Smell that?" she whispered.

Montaron looked up, nodded, and peered into the darkness. Assuming Willow would follow, the halfling began to creep toward a side passage. Willow did follow as her mind raced through the spells she had memorized over the last few months searching for one to use incase they might be on the verge of being attacked.

When they came to the corner of the nearest side passage, Montaron peeked around and immediately put out a hand to keep Willow from going any farther.

"Kobolds," the halfling whispered, and the clatter of stone on stone sounded from the side passage. Assuming the kobolds had heard them, Willow stepped around the corner and rushed them as she began casting a spell.

There were three of the filthy little creatures. One was obviously standing guard but wasn't the first to see Willow come around the corner. She made eye contact with the one who was standing next to a small iron cart. The third kobold was standing on this one's shoulders and was pouring something over the load of ore stacked in a jumble in the cart. The kobold on the bottom yelped and its knees buckled a little in fright or in the beginning of an attempt to run. The guard spun but not at Willow. Instead the fool looked at its partner, who yelped again when cast her spell. It caught on fire.

This time the kobold on the bottom did run, sending the one on top spilling face first into the cart. There was a jumble of dog noises Aquarra didn't wait to hear, and the bottle crashed when it fell from the kobold's hand. The little creature who first noticed Willow made off down the tunnel at a dead run, and Willow paused only long enough to rip the cast another spell that would take care of the one in the cart.

Montaron was next to her by then and held a hand up to stop Willow from chasing off into the darkness after the fleeing kobold.

"What were they doin'?" Montaron asked.

It took a second or two for Willow to answer. "I don't know," she answered finally, "pouring something on these rocks."

Willow motioned in the general direction of the cart and the kobolds but kept her eyes glued on the wall of darkness ahead of her, wishing she had Buffy's Slayer hearing or even her eyesight.

"Filthy beasts, eh lass?" Montaron commented

Montaron squatted next to one of the kobold's that Willow had dispatched and flicked at a broken bottle with the tip of a finger.

"What is that?" Willow asked.

"What's what?"

"That bottle," Willow said, "what were they pouring on those rocks?"

"Ore," Montaron corrected, "not rocks . . . iron ore. I'll assume, if ye don't mind, that whatever it is, it's what's causin' this iron plague."

"Kobolds?" Willow asked, her voice full of skepticism.

"Not likely, my friend," Montaron said, laughing, "but paid to do it? Paid by Amnians to brin' 'arm to the people o' Baldur's Gate?"

At that moment there was the unmistakable shuffle of gravel in the dark passage, and Willow took two long, fast strides down the tunnel. The light from Willow's spell caught the kobold's eyes first, and the two big orange spots shone brightly, widening in surprise and fear.

There was a poodle yelp, and the thing turned and ran.

Willow didn't hesitate this time but was off like a shot. She knew there was a possibility that she might not find her way back to Aquarra or Buffy. But if she could capture the kobold then maybe they could get some answers. She tried to track the kobold by sound mostly and seemed to do well. As the little creature slipped into one nearly concealed side passage after another, Willow started to get a feel for running down the rough, gravelly incline in the tricky light of the torch. Eventually she could see the kobold's back as it continued to run for its life. Aquarra had to assume that Montaron had been able to keep up and was becoming worried that she wouldn't be able to retrace her steps back to the mine cart without the halfling.

The kobolds came at her from all sides, bursting into the tight radius of the light from her spell from the impenetrable darkness beyond. She didn't bother to count, she simply started casting. It didn't take long for Willow to dispatch the kobolds.

The fight was a cacophony of yelps and clinks and grunts, and Willow's ears rang from it, but she was sure the voice she suddenly heard echo through the tunnel was Jaheira's. She couldn't make out a word, but the tone was unmistakable.

She was calling for help. So Willow followed the sound of Jaheira's pleading voice for what seemed like hours but might have been only minutes. She occasionally heard the scrape and scuffle of kobold feet on gravel in the darkness, and she could still smell the wet dog stench of them all around, but she went on.

Willow came to a wide intersection where five tunnels all converged in a roughly circular chamber. In the center of the room was what appeared to her eye to be a natural sinkhole. The floor dropped away abruptly. She heard Jaheira call, "Anybody!" clearly now, and there was no doubt in Willow's mind that the voice was coming from somewhere down inside the sinkhole.

She rushed to the side and screamed, "Jaheira!" so loudly that the echoes masked the sound of the half a dozen kobolds who rushed her from behind.

The things were no bigger than three feet tall and the Kobolds pushed her forward that fraction of an inch that made falling into the pit impossible to avoid.

Two of the kobolds yelped, and a third whimpered. Three of them were either too stupid or too slow to avoid falling in after Willow, who had somehow managed to land on one of them. The scrawny little beast didn't provide much cushion, and when they hit the floor maybe twenty feet down she felt every ounce of the force of the impact, and so did the kobold, judging by the loud, splintering crack.

The sounds of the kobolds' dying from the fall were unmistakable. From above the three survivors yelped and barked and cooed in their own primeval language. A

"Willow!"

Jaheira's voice sounded closer now.

Willow looked around and saw that she was in an even larger chamber than the one above, and she was not alone.

The smell of the man hit her at the same moment she saw him, and she nearly gagged. The man was rushing at her with a club fashioned from a heavy tree branch.

"Kali, Hera, Kronos, Thonic. Air like nectar thick as onyx. Cassiel by your second star, hold mine victim as in tar," Willow rapidly chanted and her attack found himself immediately immobile. She took one cautious step back, "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm who Tazok sent you to kill!" the half-orc blurted. "You found Mulahey all right!"

Willow knew that she had to deal with the half-orc before she could return her attention to Jaheira. "Discede!" she said with a clap of her hands, hoping the spell would work without the ingredients. The half-orc disappeared as she collapsed to the floor. She rubbed her hand to her nose and wiped away blood. "I really need to stop using that spell."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Open it!" Jaheira almost shrieked. Her voice was quavering with panic and so many other conflicting emotions that Willow was almost overwhelmed by the sound.

"I'm not sure..." Willow started to say, looking around everywhere for something she could use to pry the stout oaken locked door open with.

"You'll never get it open, lass," a smooth male voice said.

Willow stopped and peered through the window that Jaheira had been peering out of. It was dark in the cell, and she couldn't see anything but the shadowy outline of Jaheira's head held close to the door.

"Who is that in there with you?" Willow asked.

"An elf," Jaheira said, obviously irritated with the digression, "but don't worry about that, Willow, just open the gods forsaken door!"

"I hope she'll stay to feed us and bring us water," the elf said dryly. "If she's killed our jailers and can't get the door open we'll die of thirst before we die of hunger."

"The jailer is likely not dead. But he won't be any help either. I teleported him, hopefully a good long distance away," Willow said.

"Willow will open it," Jaheira added, though there was little hint of confidence in her voice. "Willow, find the key. There's got to be a key out there somewhere."

Willow searched the area but found only a few more doors to some empty cells and a big locked wooden trunk. "There's no key," she said.

"And now with the fact you teleported the jailer, we're out of the frying pan," the elf said, "and into the fire. This is quite a savior you've set for us, half-breed."

"Shut up, you," Jaheira snapped, her voice growing more and more panicked. "The thief! Where's Montaron?"

"I don't know," Willow told her as she tried to pull out the bars in the little window. "He didn't keep up with me."

"Not a surprise," she sneered. "What did you find out from Mulahey?"

"What do you mean?" Willow asked, giving up on trying to pull the bars out. She started to try and think of a spell that might open the door, but she hadn't learned one in her time in Nashkel. She started to search through her possessions for something that might help her open the door.

"When you questioned the half-orc," Jaheira said impatiently, "what did he tell you?"

"I only asked him who he was," Willow said. "He told me his name and the name of someone named Tazok. I guess from what he said Tazok may have wanted him dead for some reason." She stopped at the sound of metal on metal in her belt pouch.

"Buffy killed Khalid didn't she," Jaheira said, her voice very much different, huskier, heavier. "Is he dead?"

Willow sighed. "I don't know. Aquarra and Buffy are with him now."

"Sounds like you've mastered the situation here," the elf said dryly.

Willow ignored the other prisoner and held up the ring of keys Buffy had taken from Montaron when they had found the dead man in the field of flowers. What made her think to even try, she didn't know. It was just blind desperation meeting blind luck. The third key she tried turned, and there was a loud click, and the door hit her in the face hard enough to cause her to drop the keys.

Jaheira pushed the door open and came out of the cell quickly, her legs stiff and tight. "Montaron and Xzar are gone?" she asked, covering her fear.

"Whoever they are," the elf said, "they are wise. My name is Xan."

The elf was just an inch or so shorter than Jaheira and not very solidly built. He had the look of a starving man.

Jaheira had been disarmed and was disheveled. There was a bruise on the side of her neck and on her left forearm, but she seemed in good enough shape. "Take me back to Khalid," she said, her voice softer now, less panicked, but still audibly shaking. "Take me to my husband."

"Where were the keys?" Xan asked before Willow could tell Jaheira she didn't know.

"On a poisoned corpse near a collapsing farmhouse in the middle of a field of wildflowers," Willow answered.

The elf huffed and turned away, but there was something in his look...

"What?" Jaheira asked, straightening her sword belt.

"The keys Montaron found on the dead man seem to work here," Willow told her.

"Damn it," she whispered, "Montaron." Then louder, "Which way?"

Willow looked around and sighed. "I have no idea which way to go. I fell through a hole in the ceiling."

"Where did this comrade of yours fall?" Xan asked.

Willow and Jaheira tried their best to describe the mine entrance, and Xan nodded as he listened, then gestured to a passage.

Jaheira was suspicious but obviously keen on getting out of the mine, so she followed the elf as did Willow.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

They didn't encounter a single kobold on their way back out of the mine, but they could occasionally detect a lingering trace of that wet dog smell. It took nearly an hour to find Khalid, Aquarra and Buffy. When Jaheira first saw the form of her husband, slumped motionless on the cold stone floor of the mine, his head in Buffy's lap, she sobbed once, hard enough to jingle the sheathed sword and rings that hung from her belt.

"I'm sorry." Buffy said, her voice not much more than a whisper. "I didn't mean to, it was an accident."

"Khalid," Jaheira said, her voice a contradiction of hope, fear, and surprise,

Aquarra held up a bottle. "I trusted the man who sold me this. It was supposed to be a healing potion."

Jaheira nodded as she lowered her ear next to her husband's mouth and listened. His breathing was regular. She looked at the wound and found it wasn't bleeding.

"Can we move him?" Xan asked Aquarra.

Aquarra shrugged and said, "I guess he'll need to sleep it off."

"Jaheira," Buffy said. "I will carry him, if you have no objections. It is the least I can do for what I did."

Jaheira looked at Buffy and nodded. "Thank you, Buffy. Let's go," she said. "Let's go back to Nashkel and get Khalid into a real bed."


	6. Chapter 6: Back to Nashkel

**Chapter 6: Back to Nashkel**

"You're not planning on going through there, are you?" Xan asked, though he knew full well they were.

Buffy stopped, Khalid slung limply over one shoulder, and asked, "Why not?"

"We came this way," Jaheira said, only reluctantly stopping herself.

In the early evening gloom the edge of the field of black flowers seemed to glow with a soft gray light. Xan was being very obvious about trying to keep his distance and was already walking slowly along the wider, more often used path back to Nashkel.

"I'm not sure how you survived that, exactly," Xan said, "but it's death to walk through that patch of flowers. Those are black lotus flowers—powerful poison planted here by the Zhentarim."

"Zhentarim?" the Willow asked.

"Montaron," Jaheira breathed. "How could I have been so blind? Only the Zhentarim could be responsible for such an abomination."

"If your missing friend was a Zhent," Xan said, "he might have had some kind of—"

"Lucky ale," Jaheira finished.

Buffy looked to Willow with a sigh. "I knew I shouldn't have had a drink."

"From the sounds of it though, it might have been good you did, or you could have …" Willow said as she motioned in the direction of the dilapidated house and the corpse.

"I don't work with Zhents," Xan said through clenched teeth, realizing he had done just that for the last tenday and a half. "They planted those flowers there to block the path to the mine. They tried to charge a toll for passing through or around them, but it didn't take long for the mining bosses to hire some... I believe they called themselves 'adventurers'... to drive the Zhentarim off. That took care of the tolls, but no one's been able to get rid of those damnable black flowers."

"Montaron..." Jaheira whispered.

"I'm going to kill him," Aquarra said.

Buffy nodded, knowing the feeling. While she didn't like to kill humans. There was a time she was willing to do just that when it had meant saving Angel from death. Looking back she knew if she ever returned home that Faith deserved an apology.

Jaheira started to babble what was apparently a string of meaningless syllables. She was holding her hands in front of her face, fingertips touching, palm-to-palm, and her eyes were tightly closed.

"We have to get Khalid back to Nashkel," Jaheira said, motioning Willow, Buffy, Aquarra and Xan closer to her, "stay within two paces of me, and the flowers will not harm you."

"Khalid is doing fine," Buffy said. "But even my strength will eventually give out and I'd rather not walk through poison—"

"You serve... ?" Xan asked Jaheira, ignoring Buffy.

"Mielikki," she answered simply.

It was a name Willow recognized. "Mielikki?" she repeated.

"Yes," Jaheira said noticing the thoughtful expression on Willow's face. "Do you know something?"

"Just a little trivia," Willow said. "Mielikki was at least at one time worshipped on Earth."

"You are sure?" Buffy asked as Willow nodded.

"Interesting," Jaheira said as they began to walk through the field of black flowers. "It appears that more than just the two of you crossed over from your realm."

"What realm?" Xan wondered.

"Our world is called Earth," Willow said. "I did not have access to the research I needed to confirm this. But it is what you call a material plane."

Xan nodded as he listened. "I believe I have heard of your realm," he said. "I remember hearing stories of the Mulan as a child, the Mulan were reported to have been taken as slaves from this Earth. They were eventually friend by Ao."

"Ao?" Buffy asked.

"A god if I am not mistaken," Willow said with a nod from both Jaheira and Xan telling her she was correct.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Everyone who's ever repeated that name to me has had a different idea about what they want exactly," Xan said as he walked slowly in the direction of Nashkel. The elf looked tired, and he fumbled with the laces on the high collar of his cotehardie.

Buffy was breathing just as heavily-—though she'd been carrying the sleeping Khalid.

"We should rest," Jaheira said.

Willow, Buffy, Aquarra and Xan needed no further encouragement. Buffy leaned the unconscious half-elf against a tree on the side of the path and stretched. Whatever protection Mielikki had sent through Jaheira's prayer had gotten them through the field of poisonous black flowers no worse for wear. Xan sat heavily in the rough brown grass at the wider path's edge. Jaheira knelt next to her husband and touched his face lightly. She didn't look worried, but guilty somehow.

Buffy looked at Jaheira for a moment before walking a short distance away. She stared back towards the field and sighed.

"Buffy?" Willow said as she came up on her friend from behind.

"How did you know you were gay?" Buffy asked without looking at Willow.

Willow shrugged. "When I met Tara, I just knew. Why do you want to know? Is it Jaheira?"

Buffy turned and looked past her friend to Jaheira, who was in the midst of a conversation with Xan. "Yes. I can't seem to keep her out of my thoughts. Every night now, I dream of her. You know I never thought of myself as being gay, Will."

"To tell the truth I always thought you were at least bisexual," Willow said. "Before Faith went bad. I always thought there might have been something going on between the two of you. Of course I dismissed it because of Angel …"

"There was some definite attraction there," Buffy said. "I think I just dismissed the notion, like you said I had been seeing Angel before I killed him and after her arrival I helped to get better and then we kind of started dating for a while again."

"But looking back," Willow said.

"Looking back," Buffy said. "I think you might be right. I could be bisexual. Problem is though, nothing can ever come of it, not with Jaheira at least. She is after all married. Plus I want to find Dawn before I even begin thinking about that."

Buffy noticed Xan elf stood slowly, silently. She and Willow made their way to him quickly. "We're being tracked," he whispered. He nodded in a more specific direction, and Buffy concentrated her attention there but heard nothing, The elf took two silent steps backward and knelt next to Aquarra, Khalid and Jaheira.

Buffy and Willow heard the breath of a whisper, could see Xan's lips form the word "Sword," and Jaheira gave him Khalid's. Xan stepped over the sleeping half-elf and began to climb the tree.

Aquarra stood and moved beside Buffy and Willow. Just then Buffy heard something in the bushes, but it may have just been a bird or an animal. Xan made it to the first layer of stout boughs and kept going.

Aquarra jumped at the loud swish of brush and put both hands on her sword. The sound startled Xan, and Jaheira gasped when he fell from the tree.

The elf didn't hit the ground. A figure came out of the bushes and caught him, holding Xan like a baby and maybe saving his life. The elf's savior was immediately followed by a wave of reeking stench. Aquarra, Buffy, Willow and Jaheira each put a hand to their mouths and gagged.

Xan said something loudly in Elvish and leaped from his savior's arms.

"Well," a gravelly, resonating voice said, "pleased to make your a-a-acquain—to meet you, too."

"Get away from me, freak," Xan spat and scuttled away from the speaker, bringing Khalid's sword to the ready.

The man—if you could call him a man—who saved Xan's life was a short, stocky figure in rags. The skin of the creature's face was an ashy white with small specks of black. Gray hair clung to its blotchy scalp in patches. Its eyes were sunken orbs of pale yellow shot with a spider's web of tiny red threads. The eye sockets were swollen and seeping black, infected blood.

"Goddess," Willow said, "that's worse than the half-orc."

"Korak," the creature said. "My name is Korak."

"Korak?" Aquarra asked, her voice seeming to spin in time with her head. She knew this... man. "By all the gods, I was at your funeral."

"Didn't quite take," the creature replied, grinning to show gums crawling with maggots.

Xan backed up even more, his legs shaking even worse. "Leave us alone," he said. "Go away, or we'll kill you."

"I join you," Korak said. "I'll join with you walking!"

"I don't—" Jaheira started to say, then gagged again. She obviously wanted to back away but opted to stay with her husband.

"I don't think so, Korak," Aquarra finished for her. "You're not quite . . ." Aquarra let the thought trail away since she couldn't think of a single diplomatic way to finish it.

"I help you," Korak persisted, taking a step forward, "like when we were kids."

Xan flinched and stood up straight, taking a step in with his sword out. "Come no closer, ghoul!" he called.

"Ghoul?" Aquarra asked, surprised.

"You know this thing?" Xan asked Aquarra.

"It was a long time ago," Aquarra answered, "in Candlekeep, when we were kids. He died three years ago."

"Ghouls don't—" Jaheira stopped at the sight of Korak's long, thin, pointed, inhuman tongue. The thing lashed out like a snake to lick at the pestilence under the creature's right eye.

"Gods," Jaheira whispered.

Aquarra, Willow and Buffy felt more pity for the creature than the loathing so obvious on Xan's face or the horror reflected in Jaheira's gaze.

"Go on now, Korak," Aquarra said, "back into the brush with you."

"I help you," Korak persisted, though he came no closer. "I help you on the road—the dangerous road."

"Buffy," Xan said, "help me kill the thing!"

"No, no," Aquarra argued. "Korak is going to go on his way now, aren't you Korak?"

"I help—"

Aquarra burst forward, and the ghoul fell backward, then scrabbled into the tall brush. "Stay in there, Korak," she said. "You can't go where we're going."

"We'll kill you if you follow us," Xan added, his voice shaking from fear and exhaustion.

The ghoul backed away, but not too far.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The man was too short to really head-butt Jaheira properly, so she took it on the chin. Aquarra spat a curse and punched a bricklayer across the jaw. Buffy dodged a stool that someone threw at her head. She took a step forward, planting a foot on the fallen mason's stomach and grabbed for the man who'd thrown the stool.

A little, chubby commoner thought he could get away, was so confident, in fact, that he was smiling as he turned to bolt. Willow took half a yard of the faded fabric that made up the man's shirt in her left hand and punched her in the throat with his right hand.

"Get off me!" the mason yelled from the floor. He was about to say something else, but when Buffy kicked him in the head he shut up.

"Willow!" Jaheira called, and Willow ducked another stool. She looked up to see Jaheira knee one of the barroom toughs between the legs.

Aquarra laughed at the sight but stopped abruptly when a stool shattered across the back of her head. "One more chair," Aquarra growled, then spun on the man behind her. The assailant was the youngest of the ruffians.

The kid tried to punch Aquarra, but Buffy grabbed the younger man's fist. The young blond man screamed in a decidedly girlish fashion as Buffy crushed the bones in his hand.

"One more chair hits any one of us in the head, and I'm going to start cutting off heads!" Buffy threatened. She wasn't going to actually kill any of them if she didn't have to. She hoped the fear of the accusation though would stay their hand.

Jaheira called, "Don't kill him, Buffy, we don't have anyone to plant evidence on this one."

The young tough began to cry and said, "He hires s-sellswords — sellswords for the Iron Throne."

"Tazok?" Willow asked. They'd returned to Nashkel with only one bit of information: a name. When they'd inquired at the inn, after putting both Khalid and the exhausted Xan safely to bed, they'd been met with violence.

"T-Tazok," the young man answered. Buffy still had a tight hold of his hand, and the kid whimpered through another short series of distinct cracking sounds. "He hires humanoids too — orcs and the gods only know what doesn't care who — who w-works for him."

"Where do we find this man?" Aquarra asked.

"Beregost," the boy whimpered. "Tazok's a — a— he's an ogre — works out of Beregost. . . ."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"This 'Iron Throne' is obviously a Zhentarim splinter group of some kind set up to disrupt the iron trade and foment a war between Amn and Baldur's Gate. The why of it concerns me less than finding a way to stop it," Xan explained.

"That is why we were sent—" Jaheira said, stopping herself at a quick, warning look from Khalid.

"Sent where?" Xan asked, "by whom?"

"My father knew something, didn't he?" Aquarra asked Jaheira. "He was meeting you. . . ."

"Yes," Jaheira said, "but we don't know what it was. He had someone—or something—who could—that could . . help us."

Buffy looked to Willow, they both could tell that Jaheira was lying, that Jaheira and Khalid both had secrets they were keeping from the rest of them.

"Who are you working for?" Xan asked again. Khalid and Jaheira avoided the question skillfully enough that the elf finally let them keep their secret.

"We could all use a decent night's sleep," Jaheira said, looking pointedly at Xan. "Then we should be off to Beregost. If this Tazok is there, we should speak with him."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The inn in Nashkel was old and smelled bad, but it was good enough for Buffy. Among the many amenities it lacked were well oiled hinges. This failure in basic maintenance was something Buffy actually appreciated, since the long creaking of the door was enough to wake her. Someone was coming into the room.

She wasn't expecting any late night visitors, and he wanted whoever this was to get closer to her. She counted footsteps and tracked the distance the intruder was from her by hearing alone. Two more steps, she figured.

Buffy didn't open her eyes or move. She wasn't expecting any late night visitors, and she wanted whoever this was to get closer to her. Buffy's Slayer hearing told her exactly where the person was. Her sword was under the straw bed. She could get to it, but it would be obvious she was going for a weapon and would take time.

Buffy didn't clench her fist, still not wanting to betray to the intruder that she was awake. Two more steps, she figured. She counted them: one—two—and she was up. She swung her hand around behind her and spun on her rump, bringing her feet to the floor and standing as she sliced her left hand up, grabbed soft material with a lot of slack in it, then swung in with her right. She pulled the punch a little.

The punch connected with skin that was surprisingly soft. There was no scrape of stubble, and Buffy realized she'd hit a woman. The woman pulled back, but she didn't let go. Glory had been able to kill as easily as any man and for that reason she knew it was best not to underestimate a woman. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the light, and she could see the outline of the intruder's face. Her jaw was strong, and her face wide and her nose—it was Jaheira.

"Buffy," Jaheira whispered huskily, "don't."

"Jaheira?" she said, also whispering, though she hadn't made a conscious decision to.

Buffy let go of her. She crossed to the little table in the corner and lit the rusted lamp that was the room's only accessory. The room was bathed in an orange glow, and she could see Jaheira close the door, her back to Buffy. She put a hand to her face and turned around slowly, not making eye contact. Buffy could see that her nose was bleeding.

"Jaheira," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't know it was you."

"It's all right," she whispered. "I'm all right."

"What are you doing here?" Buffy asked.

"I have something I wished to discuss, in private," said Jaheira. "What I am about to tell you, you cannot repeat. Not even to Aquarra."

Buffy looked at Jaheira with confusion. "Why, what's going on?"

Jaheira sighed. "How much do you know about Bhaal?"

"Not much," Buffy said. "I'm not much really for research and finding Dawn has always been my first priority. But I did find some references to him in the books at Candlekeep. He was the God of Murder was he not?"

"Indeed he was," Jaheira said. "Some years ago, no one knows really when. He foresaw what is called today as the Time of Troubles. He foresaw his own death during that time and took measures to see that he could return. He spawned a multitude of progeny for that purpose."

Buffy nodded as she listened, she had witnessed enough of this world to know that Jaheira's story was likely true. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Aquarra is one of his progeny. She is a daughter of Bhaal," said Jaheira as Buffy's jaw dropped.

Buffy watched as Jaheira slipped out the door, her body sliding under the silk nightgown. The sight of it almost made Buffy gasp. She blew out the lamp and went back to bed, but didn't sleep. She realized that she may not be truly gay, but that Willow had been right that she was indeed bisexual and that she was falling in love with a married woman.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Out in the corridor, Jaheira sighed. "I'm sorry, Buffy, for not telling you of Gorion's tests, that he discovered that you too are a daughter of Bhaal."


	7. Chapter 7: Heading North

**Chapter 7: Heading North**

Morning came damp and gray to the slowly dying town of Nashkel. The inn was busy even less than an hour after dawn. Guests were settling their accounts, removing their horses from the stable, and taking to the suddenly more crowded roads north to Baldur's Gate and south to Amn.

Aquarra, tired of walking, had tried to find horses before the others woke but had no luck. There were horses for sale, but with the iron plague-fueled exodus only beginning, the going price for a decent steed was easily ten times what Aquarra thought the six of them might muster, even after the mayor had paid them for their services.

She returned to the inn on foot, already tired and weary of a road that now just seemed pointless. She saw Xan first, the elf was still limping a bit but was otherwise fit for the road. She returned his warm smile and asked, "The others?"

"Here," Khalid said from behind Aquarra. Xan peered around Aquarra's hulking frame and a look of stern disapproval crossed his face. Aquarra turned and there were Buffy, Willow, Khalid and Jaheira.

Jaheira's face was marred by a purplish bruise, and there was a decided swelling to her otherwise strong nose. She'd washed, but there was still a trace of dried blood around one nostril.

Xan sighed and said to Aquarra, "I cannot ride with a man who beats his woman."

"Xan, no," Jaheira said, her voice sounded as embarrassed as Aquarra felt. "It's not—"

"It is," Xan said, his leaden gaze shifting to Khalid, "what it is. Isn't that right, breed?"

Buffy shook her head and held up a hand, knowing what was likely to come next.

Khalid, though, actually smiled. "Easy, my friend, you've made a mistake."

Xan stood straight and said, "I cannot ride with this Amnian half-breed."

"Why are you riding with us anyway, elf?" Khalid shot back.

"That's enough," Jaheira said. "Xan, Khalid did not strike me. He never has, and he knows well enough not to try."—the two shared a knowing glance—"My nose is as the rest of me—my own business."

Xan heard her and understood as much as he was able. "As you wish," he conceded. "We should ride."

"Actually," Aquarra said, "we're walking."

"To Beregost?" the elf asked. "Are you mad? It'll take a tenday!"

"A bit less maybe," Khalid said, "but we may be able to—"

"No," Aquarra cut in, "we're walking."

"So we're off," Willow said, and they set off onto the northbound road.

"Why are you coming with us, anyway?" Buffy asked Xan as they and Willow fell into step behind Jaheira and Khalid.

"This Tazok," the elf answered, "this ogre... whoever he is, was keeping me in a cave, closed in like a veal calf, to work as slave labor for this Iron Throne of his. Why wouldn't I come with you to help kill him?"

"We didn't say we meant to kill him," Buffy argued.

Xan actually laughed at this. "As you wish, my friend, but—"

"Don't tell me you care!" Jaheira shouted at Khalid, loudly, and practically ran ahead.

Khalid paused, letting her go. He didn't turn around, but the back of his neck blushed. When she'd passed him by a dozen paces or so he continued on behind her.

"Well," Xan muttered so only Aquarra could hear, "this is going to be an even longer walk than I thought."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Beregost," Aquarra said, nine days later, as they crossed into the dusty, crowded, vile-smelling town. "What a hole."

"Indeed," Xan agreed. "Precisely the sort of hole in which one might find an ogre hiring kobolds to sabotage an iron mine."

Aquarra returned the elf's smile and said, "Two days, Xan, no more."

"I understand, Aquarra," Xan replied. "It will take at least that long for me to find gold enough for a decent sword, longer maybe to find a sword worth that gold—human swords, to think..."

"And it will take us that long to find Tazok," Jaheira added.

She seemed sad, maybe even frightened that Aquarra and Buffy were taking leave of them, but she didn't try to stop them.

"Don't kill him," Buffy told her, then turned her gaze to include the two men, "until we get back."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy and Aquarra slid their swords out of their sheaths with a metallic ring that echoed across the flat plains. They'd come to Gorion's grave to finally return the corpse to Candlekeep. What they found would have made them retch if it hadn't made them so angry.

They'd expected to find Gorion's holy symbol gone. Instead they found the grave not merely desecrated, but completely exhumed. Gorion's body was nowhere to be found. There was blood, strips of viscera that might have been flesh or tendon, and was that part of a ribcage in the hole there next to one of the ghouls?

Aquarra's mind went completely away, and she succumbed to red, murderous fury. Buffy hesitated as Aquarra jumped into the open grave with the two reeking, putrescent, flesh-gorged ghouls. Aquarra not only didn't hesitate but grew frustrated with the unhurried pull of gravity on the way down.

Buffy wanted to help her friend avenge the desecration of Gorion's body, but there was barely enough room for Aquarra and the two ghouls.

One of the ghouls let out a little girl's shriek at the sight of Aquarra. One of the ghouls lost an arm. It went spiraling away and caught the lip of the grave, falling back in and was itself cut in half by another slash of Aquarra's blade. She let out an inhuman scream of rage and went at the rapidly back-stepping ghoul again. The blade ripped through the undead thing's chest, and it screamed and flailed its bloodcrusted claws at her. Aquarra was aware of the stench of her father's rotted flesh on the ghoul's breath, and her scream became a shriek. The ghoul echoed the cry but with an edge of cowardice and panic not at all present in Aquarra's.

The thing got in a lucky swipe with a claw, and Aquarra's left hand came off her sword and popped up, though the she kept hold of the weapon with her right hand. The ghoul grabbed Aquarra's left wrist with speed born of mortal terror. This thing didn't want to die again.

Aquarra spun her sword through her fingertips, whirling it back behind her. She knew why Buffy had not joined her. There not enough room for her and the ghouls both. She was too close, and she knew it. The ghoul brought her left hand to its mouth and bit down hard. Aquarra could feel the pain and the cold of the bite, and she roared again in rage. She passed her blade in front of her hard and fast and opened the ghoul's belly. One of Gorion's eyes rolled out with the meat and guts, and Aquarra screamed from hatred of these ghouls and horror at the sight of her dead father's body parts. The ghoul went down without twitching, its twisted face serene and begging for some mercy it would never find in whatever hell it went back to.

Aquarra's muscles started to stiffen right away, and though it only took her a few seconds to climb out of the open grave, it seemed to take hours. As Aquarra climbed out of the grave she found the other ghoul had scrambled out and had been dispatched by Buffy.

Aquarra staggered and fell, her chin hitting the coarse, wet grass hard. She lay there for what seemed like forever, a worried Buffy watching her.

"I'm sorry," Buffy said as she knelt next to Aquarra on the ground and pulled her friend into an embrace as she tried to comfort the grieving girl.

"I told them," a strangely familiar, inhuman voice came from above them. "I told them not to eat that one—not that one."

"Korak," Aquarra grunted more than spoke the ghoul's name.

"Korak, yes, that's me," the ghoul said. It was sitting in a tree above them, and Buffy and Aquarra brought their swords up, sure the ghoul was going to try to drop on them.

"Bastard," Aquarra breathed, "you bastard..."

"Not me," the ghoul said indignantly. "No, not me! I knew! I knew not to eat that one. I told them not to eat that one. I killed one for you."

"What?" Aquarra muttered. "Who killed . . . ?"

Buffy thought back and then her eyes widened. There had been three when Aquarra had jumped into the grave. The other must have hightailed it while Aquarra was busy with one and she another.

"I killed one that ate my old teacher, your father, though I can't remember his name—your father's," the ghoul explained.

Aquarra shook her head as she stood up with Buffy. She turned and walked away.

"I did," Korak pressed.

"I know, I know," Aquarra said.

"Come with you, yes?" Korak babbled. "You go to Cloak Wood. I know Cloak Wood."

"We're not going into the Cloak Wood."

"I know Cloak Wood. I take you there. I come with you."

"No," Aquarra said. "No, ghoul. We'll kill you if you follow us. You're lucky we don't kill you now, whether you took out that other thing or not. I personally should kill every last one of you. I should make it my life's work."

Buffy sighed knowing the feeling of revenge. But such revenge would never be satiated once a person started down that path.

"Just eating," Korak tried to explain, "that's what we do, like you and cows, you and pigs. We eat."

Aquarra wanted to laugh at that, thought he might cry, but did neither.

"If you follow us," Buffy said, "I'll kill you."


	8. Chapter 8: Beregost

**Author's Note:** There has been some changes to this story. It is strongly suggested you reread things from the start or you might find yourself lost. The first change you will see is that Willow and Dawn are not in the story from the beginning as they were originally, which leads into a major change. A reviewer brought to my attention that Toril has people from Earth and that Elminster himself has visited Earth as well. So to keep Buffy from going home right away when that info would be found out. I had her arriving in Candlekeep alone with Willow and Dawn showing up later.

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Beregost**

"If it's over, it's over," Khalid said, "but I won't be made a cuckold while — "

"Stop it, Khalid," Jaheira interrupted. "There's nothing ... Buffy ..."

"Spare me, Jaheira," the half-elf countered, "you've made your feelings plain to us all."

Jaheira's eyes flashed angrily in the dim light of the nearly empty tavern. They'd been in Beregost almost three days and had discovered little of value about the Iron Throne, but both of them had had a chance to think.

"I'm not — " she started to say but stopped when she realized she had no idea how to finish that sentence.

"Do you love her?"

"Did you love Charessa?" she spat.

Khalid sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head. "That was a long time ago."

"That was three months ago, Khalid," Jaheira argued, "and more before that."

"I like — " It was Khalid's turn to start something he couldn't finish.

"She's a Harper, Khalid," Jaheira said, though he certainly already knew that. "You can't even find your ... your ..."

"Dalliances?" he provided, smirking with a combination of humor and guilt.

Jaheira wasn't at all amused, or at all forgiving. "We worked with her," she said.

"I'm not proud of that, my wife — " Khalid started.

"Don't call me that."

"It's true, isn't it?" Khalid asked. "At least for now?"

"For now, maybe."

Khalid's face grew serious, and he leaned over the table holding her eyes with his gaze.

"Buffy is a freak, Jaheira," he said quietly. "She is a daughter of the Lord of Murder."

"What?"

They turned and saw Willow sitting at the next table over. They had not been expecting her to be so close or that she would overhear.

"How is that possible?" Willow wondered. "Buffy and I are not even from your world. How can she be Bhaal's daughter?"

"Buffy is a child of Bhaal," said Jaheira. "Gorion surmised that it was within the realm of possibility that Bhaal had sowed his progeny amongst other realms of existence, not just this one. In one of his letters to us he mentioned Buffy, yes we knew of her before we met her. He mentioned that he had worked a small spell upon her and found the taint her."

Willow sighed and shook her head. Was it true? Was she Buffy a daughter of the God of Murder? Was that why the portal had deposited her, Buffy and even Dawn on Toril. Was it simply returning them to the realm of Buffy's father?

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Xan rubbed his aching forearm. Letting the orc beat him at arm wrestling was as painful as it had been productive. He was in the process of buying the orc a drink, but the ugly creature who called himself Forik was already talking.

"Tazok's a punk," Forik growled, "who still owes me seventeen copper pieces."

"Indeed," Xan said, "then you'll help me find him?"

The orc grunted and said, "If I knew where 'e was I'd'a beat da copper outta 'im by now, elf."

"He's recruiting men and humanoids—orcs, and other ... warriors. He's got to have some kind of—"

"Nah, nah," the orc interrupted, "Tazok ain't in town dat long when 'e's 'ere. 'E's gotta guy, though, over at da Red Sheaf."

"The inn?" Xan asked.

"Wha'd'ya think?" the orc growled. The big humanoid looked Xan up and down, taking stock of the gaunt elf. "I 'ate elves."

Xan shook his head and asked, "You what?"

"I 'ate elves," Forik repeated, then smiled and added, "but yer awright."

"For my sake," Xan said, returning the creature's ugly grin,

"I hope you're dropping the 'h' off the front of'hate.' "

This made the orc laugh. "Yeah, yer awright."

"So Tazok stays at the Red Sheaf?"

"Nah," the orc said, " 'E's gotta guy in Beregost—calls 'imself Tranzing, er Tazing, er somethin' like that. Tanzazing stays at da Red Sheaf—works fer Tazok."

"Have you tried to get your copper out of this... Tranzing?" Xan asked.

The orc looked away and shrugged, trying not to look scared. " 'E don't owe me."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"How long are we going to just sit back," the burly old miner shouted to the slowly assembling crowd in the center of Beregost's quiet marketplace, "and let Amn do as she pleases with us? How long are we going to watch our brothers be thrown out of work—our mines spoiled, our livelihoods destroyed? I'm not moving to Waterdeep! Waterdeep has nothing for me! This is my home—I mine iron—and Amn isn't going take that away from me, or my sons!"

Xan touched Khalid lightly on the shoulder, and the Khalid, Jaheira and Willow turned and greeted him. "Getting testy?" he asked, nodding at the speechmaker.

"He'll call for war next," Jaheira predicted, and the burly miner reciprocated in kind.

"If I have to take my pick to an Amnian head before I take it to a vein of good iron—so be it!"

There was a spattering of applause in the growing crowd, and someone shouted, "Let's march!"

A man in Amnian attire slowly backed out of the marketplace, knowing when to make himself scarce.

"Tazok has an associate," Xan reported, "a man named Tranzing, or Tanzing, staying at the Red Sheaf."

"That makes sense," Khalid said, nodding.

"We've heard that Tazok has worked out of that inn before," Jaheira added, "and that people—strangers—from the south have visited there looking for him and his right-hand man. We hadn't heard this name Tanzing."

"Are we going to let Amn strangle us?" the miner shrieked, and the crowd, now over a hundred strong, roared back. Fists flew up into the air.

"We should get out of here," Willow suggested said, eyeing the crowd.

Khalid nodded, took a flinching Jaheira by the arm, and followed Willow and Xan back to the inn. When they entered the front doors, passing another crowd of travelers preparing to head north, the innkeeper stopped them with a frantic wave.

"Sirs and madams!" the innkeepers called. "Your female friends are back. They asked me to ask you to ask that they ... they asked that I ask..."

"Easy, there," Xan said, placing a condescending hand on the flustered little man's shoulder.

"They are waiting for you in their rooms."

Xan smiled, and the innkeeper said, "Everybody's checking out!" as if that were some explanation.

"As will we, I'm afraid," Xan said. The crestfallen innkeeper nodded and turned away.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Come in," Buffy said in answer to the light rap at the door.

The old door squeaked open just enough for Jaheira to slip through. She sat down on the corner of the bed. Aquarra had gone to take a bath in the communal baths leaving Buffy to wait for Jaheira, Willow, Xan and Khalid.

Jaheira moved toward him slowly but didn't come too close. "We have some... we know more," she said quietly. "Are you all right?"

Buffy sighed. "Worried for Aquarra."

"Why? What happened?"

"We got to Gorion's grave to find it empty except for some ghouls, like that Korad or Kerak or something like that. He had been eaten."

"Oh, that's terrible," Jaheira said. When Buffy said no more she decided to continue on with what they had learned. "Tazok has a man in Beregost. There's a man living in one of the inns here named Tranzig who helps Tazok recruit sellswords and humanoids for the Iron Throne. Xan and Willow have gone to try to find him, to keep an eye on him. Khalid will come to tell us if he leaves the Red Sheaf."

Buffy nodded.

Jaheira stepped closer. She reached out a hand and laid a hand on Buffy's shoulder.

Why Buffy stood she was not sure. But she stepped into Jaheira, and without consciously willing herself to do so she began to kiss Jaheira. Her skin tingled, and she drew in a sharp breath and heard Jaheira do the same thing. There was something about the feel of her that was just perfect—and perfectly wrong.

"I," Buffy said as she pushed away from Jaheira. "I'm sorry, Jaheira. You and Khalid are … There are two voices to my thoughts. One I'm almost sure is the Slayer and the other I think is just me. One thing both voices seem to want is you."

A tear rolled down Jaheira's sun-browned cheek, and she reached up and ran her fingers through Buffy's hair.


	9. Chapter 9: Slime

**Chapter 9: Slime**

"We have horses," Khalid said, "thanks to Buffy."

"Arm wrestling," Buffy said. "When I became the Slayer I never pictured using the supernatural strength that came with it for this purpose."

Khalid smiled and looked pointedly at Jaheira, who was admiring Buffy's powerful arm. She caught her husband's eye and blushed, shooting him a look that clearly said, "Say nothing!"

"Good," replied Xan, "we'll need them right now."

Willow pointed at a short, stocky fighter whose stubbly red hair shined in the feeble morning sunlight. It was Tranzig, and he was mounting a fast-looking horse on the street outside the still-sleeping Red Sheaf inn.

The six companions stood casually, assuming that Tranzig had no idea who they were or that they'd been watching him. The red-headed man rode off at an easy pace, taking the dirt road out of Beregost to the north toward Baldur's Gate.

"Here we go," Aquarra said as she climbed on her new horse, a sturdy brown stallion.

Tranzig left Beregost early enough that they weren't caught in the refugee press northward, and they let him get out of sight before they followed. Xan could easily make out the hoofprints left in the muddy road by their quarry's horse. They left Beregost, and Buffy was happy to see it behind them, for a number of reasons. She looked at the road, her horse, the trees here and there, and a hawk flying overhead—anywhere but at Jaheira, who didn't look at Buffy either. They rode in silence for over an hour before they saw anyone else.

They were just dots far ahead on the open plain when Xan spotted them and drew the others' attention to the figures.

Six people on foot, crossing the ragged grass, were moving slowly toward the road.

"We'll meet them on the road," Aquarra observed, feeling uneasy about the encounter.

Xan shrugged and said, "Fellow travelers."

"Maybe," Willow said. "But I've been in this world long enough to be wary."

"I'd say they're making for that building, there," Khalid offered. He pointed to a crumbling structure in the far distance. Made of white stone, the dilapidated structure was overgrown with weeds, ivy, and brambles. A thin line of mud showed where a path once led from the road to the columned structure that might have once been a temple.

"If we can avoid them," Jaheira said, "we should. We can't let Tranzig get too far away. Remember, we're here to find this Iron Throne, and with any luck Tranzig will lead us there. If some pilgrims have come to this ruined temple to pray, let them."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Aquarra's horse took the first hit and went down screaming. Jumping out of the way of the animal's falling bulk, she rolled on the ground and got to her feet with her sword in front of her. Jaheira's horse reared and threw her. She exhaled sharply when she hit the ground and fumbled a bit in drawing her sword but was otherwise unharmed. Buffy and Xan slid from their horses and slapped them on the rumps to keep them out of the way of the things that were attacking them.

The things that were attacking them for nothing more than hideous man-shaped creatures. They were covered in—seemed to be made of—some kind of transparent olive-green semiliquid. There were six of them, the would-be pilgrims. They could see their skeletons through the slime. They coordinated their attacks on the party like wild dogs. Xan and Buffy each slashed at one, sending a trail of olive slime shooting out over the road. The creatures staggered but kept fighting. The monsters came at them with hands held high and apart as if they meant to embrace their victims.

"Don't let them touch you," Buffy said. "I don't know what kind of effect they will have on us. But I don't think we want to find out."

Before leaving Beregost, Willow had bought herself a sword. And now she hacked into the inhuman things.

Both Aquarra and Jaheira held their own opponents back, as did Xan, but Buffy spared a glance at Khalid long enough to know that the half-elf was hard pressed. Khalid was backing into his own panicking horse.

Buffy took the head off one, and the thing collapsed. It wasn't like a man falling over, this thing literally splashed onto the ground as if the bones had just disappeared. In fact she could no longer see the dark gray outline of the creature's skeleton.

As Buffy turned to attack the one who attacked Willow, it managed to grab her best friend. Willow whipped her right forearm out and sideways. Some of the creature's slimy substance had stuck to Willow's sleeves, and she took three big, fast steps backward as she continued to flick the ooze off.

Jaheira shrieked, more in anger than in fear.

Aquarra took one down as she realized her sword was covered in the viscous, foul stuff, the blade feeling noticeably heavier. She adjusted her stance and grip accordingly to account for the new weight.

Buffy turned to face the one attacking Jaheira as it dodged out of her way. It tried to come in low, grabbing for her legs.

"Khalid!" Jaheira screamed. Buffy heard footsteps—heavy, fast, but irregular—in the grass to her right. She had to keep her eyes on the creature still swiping at her knees. She heard a thick, bubbly splash and knew that one of the others had taken a creature down. That meant there were now only two left.

"Khalid!" Xan shouted. There was a ring of desperation in the elf's voice.

Buffy, knowing something was wrong with Khalid, spun her sword up and over her head to make a downward slash into the creature's head. The monster saw its opening, dropped down on what sufficed for a rump, and went to kick out at her shin. She was waiting for the attack, though, and nimbly hopped over the slimy legs, twisting in the air to fall backward. She slid her sword behind her, along her right side, and landed directly next to the creature—too close she realized only after it was too late to stop her fall. The sword pierced the slime creature's "skin," and the thing's bones went limp. Buffy gasped and whirled out of the way, leaving her sword in the growing pile of ooze. She stood and without thinking checked her body for any of the slime.

"Khalid," Jaheira yelled again, "Buffy, Willow, Aquarra—"

Buffy jumped but not at the sound of Jaheira's voice. The puddle of viscous slime was moving and moving at her. Tendrils of syrup licked out of the mass of stuff, whipping at all of them like snake's tongues. Buffy raised her hands as she stepped backward but hesitated. Her sword was still stuck in it, and though she would have felt better if he was armed, he wasn't sure it would help. It was as if striking them with a blade only dropped them out of their humanoid form but made them no less capable of attacking. In what must have been their native form, could they be cut at all?

Willow and Jaheira both began a mumbling chant, and Buffy, Aquarra and Xan backed off quickly at the sound of it. The pool of slime still advancing on Buffy formed a thick tentacle and drew it back as if to strike. Willow and Jaheira stopped speaking, and the slime stopped moving at the same time.

"They are plants," Willow said.

"I thought they smelled like plants," Jaheira added.

"What did you both do?" Aquarra asked Jaheira and Willow.

"I remembered a spell from our world," Willow said. "I asked Jaheira if she knew it since Mielikki was also a god in this world."

"I did," Jaheira said. "And so we cast it. And by Mielikki's grace they won't be able to move for a few minutes."

Buffy bent and retrieved her sword, having to pull hard to free it from the sticky grip of the inert substance.

"Khalid," Jaheira said, "where's Khalid?"

Buffy looked all around and saw only Xan's retreating back. "This way!" the elf called.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Elves made this," Xan said, examining faded carvings in the stone of the crumbing temple, "a very long time ago."

"Khalid!" Jaheira screamed again. She was crying, and though she'd been embarrassed about it at first, now she just didn't care.

Aquarra heard a rustle of leaves on the other side of a broken wall and stopped to find it was only a squirrel.

"Why did he run?" Xan asked, not expecting an answer.

"It got on him," Jaheira said, her voice quivering. "That... stuff, that slime got on him. What was that? What were those things?"

Buffy shook her head, not sure what to say. Seeing Jaheira like this, in an emotional panic, made her feel like she did the right thing in pushing her away, but that made it no less painful for her.

"Khalid!" Aquarra called out.

There was another rustle of leaves, and Aquarra sighed. "Damned squirrels," she muttered and stepped forward and up onto a crooked paving stone. The stone collapsed at the same instant that Khalid—or what was Khalid—burst through the vegetation and lunged at her.

Aquarra bent at the waist, instinctively flinching from the attack as she fell, and this was just enough to make her fall backward, away from Khalid and down six inches to the rest of the crumbling stones. Jaheira screamed.

Khalid was changing. There was no doubt that he was becoming one of those things. Already they could see through what was left of the half-elf's skin. They could see the shadowy traces of ribs. Internal organs were shrinking fast enough that they could see their progress. Khalid's left eye was gone, his right was dissolving rapidly after having slid into the mass of slimy material that was once his head.

There was no trace of brain in there, and Buffy knew her friend was dead.

Xan uttered some curse in Elvish but gagged on the end.

Jaheira was whispering the word "no" over and over and over again.

The thing that had been Khalid lunged at Aquarra again, its dissolved feet making a sickly slurping sound on the uneven stones. Aquarra didn't think, she just reacted, bringing her sword up and in front of her. It slid through one of Khalid's arms slowly, easily, and the arm came off and splashed on the stones next to Aquarra. She had to roll backward and stand to avoid putting her hand down in the slop that was Khalid's arm.

"Aquarra—" Jaheira coughed, her voice pleading, but Aquarra had no idea what she wanted her to do.

Khalid kept coming at Aquarra, and she kept backing up. She was fending off the creature's groping attacks and trying not to kill it, though it certainly couldn't be Khalid any more. She made little cuts in the thing, hoping it would panic and run, but it didn't seem to feel pain.

"Aquarra, for the love of all the gods..." Xan said.

"As much as I hate to agree," Buffy said. "Kill it."

Aquarra closed her eyes and thrust her sword out and through Khalid's body. She could feel the mass collapse and opened her eyes again.

Jaheira barked out a strangled "No!"

Khalid collapsed into a pile of dissolving bone. The finger joints of one hand worked in the quivering pile of soupy stuff, twitching as if trying to grab on to, or hold on to something.

"Oh for—" Xan started to say but instead just turned around and staggered a couple steps away before sitting hard on the ground. The elf covered his eyes.

Buffy looked at Jaheira. Jaheira's eyes were locked onto hers. Jaheira's face was a mask of pain. Her beautiful, refined features were twisted and ugly.

Buffy wondered if she had held that same look when her mother had died and there had been nothing she could have done to save her.

Jaheira looked back at what was left of her husband and screamed into the overcast sky.

Aquarra dug into her pouch with one shaking hand and brought out the vial she'd purchased in Nashkel. She threw her sword away, and as it clattered along the paving stones she uncorked the vial, wax trailing off to drop silently in her lap. She threw the contents of the vial onto the puddle of quivering ooze that was even now moving to embrace her. She looked away, holding her breath.

"Oh," Jaheira groaned, "oh no, Khalid..."

The slime sizzled away, sending acrid smoke into the air of the crumbling temple.

"How did you know that would work?" Xan asked after a time. "The acid, I mean."

Aquarra shrugged, sighed heavily. "I didn't. It was a lucky guess"

Willow glanced at Buffy and then she moved to Jaheira and pulled the half-elf into an embrace as she tried to comfort her friend.


	10. Chapter 10: Cloak Wood Pt 1

**Chapter 10: Cloak Wood Pt 1**

The tracks of Tranzig's horse left the muddy road less than a mile north of the ruined temple. Buffy had searched in vain for her horse, remembered it had been infected with the olive slime, and took Khalid's instead. They'd mounted and rode on in complete silence. The cool breeze hissed through the dry grass. Birds and bees and mosquitoes made the only living noises.

They rode hard and fast, knowing they'd lost time with the costly attack from the creatures. Tranzig must be miles ahead of them by now, and it was getting dark. Far off to the west the sun was just touching the black line that was the distant Cloak Wood forest.

Tranzig's tracks picked up a small, rough, muddy animal trail that wound around low hills, making it difficult for Buffy even with Slayer enhanced eyesight, riding in the lead, to see more than a few yards ahead. She kept the pace brisk anyway.

The six of them were as intent on leaving the horror of that afternoon behind them as they were on catching up to Tranzig.

Aquarra hoped she'd never have to face that kind of sick, demented, impossible death again. That wasn't a way for a man to die, reduced to jelly then burned away with acid poured on him.

One of the horses snorted loudly, and Buffy hushed it. She slid from her horse, put her finger to her lips, and began to climb a short, bowl-shaped hill.

Aquarra, Willow, Xan and Jaheira slid from their horses and followed Buffy up the hill. At the top they crouched down low and Buffy pointed to a lone figure standing next to a well-rested horse on the edge of the little trail. Tranzig had one of the horse's hind legs in his hands and was working at clearing something from the animal's shoe.

"We almost rode right over him," Aquarra whispered.

They watched Tranzig for a few minutes, then they heard one of their own horses shuffle in the weeds on the other side of the hill. Tranzig looked up sharply in that direction, and Xan cursed quietly.

Tranzig paused a moment, then casually remounted his horse and followed the animal trail away from them at an easy pace. Buffy looked up, hoping to take advantage of the height of the hill to get some sense of where Tranzig was heading. She saw three thin tendrils of smoke drifting up into the air on the other side of a set of four higher, rounded-topped hills.

"Cook fires," Xan whispered having seen the smoke also.

They decided since they were this close to those fires and that was where Tranzig was going that they would make camp here. They each shivered in the cool night air. They had agreed that it would be too much of a risk to light a campfire in case there might have been outriders who would be attracted to by a campfire so close to their secret lair.

"So they're Zhents," Willow said, her words barely squeezing through a jaw held tight to keep her teeth from chattering.

"We think," Aquarra said. "I want to find out for sure."

"Not by yourself," Jaheira said.

"We can all go," Buffy said. "There are five of us, with the element of surprise…"

"… would be swarmed by hundreds of Zhentarim men-at-arms," Jaheira finished for her.

"How do you know that?" Xan asked. "It could be this Tranzig and three or four smelly orcs."

"We don't know," Jaheira said. "That's all I'm trying to say. There could be hundreds of them—a bandit army massing to bring down the mines … I don't know."

"They're trying to start a war," Willow said. "If they have an army, why would they be sneaking around pouring potions on iron ore?"

"I don't really want to. But I could go there," Xan offered, "in the dark, quietly, look around, and find out."

"And get yourself killed," Jaheira said quietly, "or worse."

"I know," said Xan. "But what choice do we have? We need to learn something of them, even if it is just their numbers."

"Xan does have a point," Buffy agreed.

Willow, Jaheira and Khalid all nodded resignedly as Xan got up and slid off into the night.

"I'm cold," Jaheira said after long, silent minutes had passed.

Buffy moved over next to Jaheira and put her arm around the half-elf and pulled her close. "I'm sorry about Khalid," she whispered.

"I know," Jaheira said as she rested her head on Buffy's shoulder.

Willow sat next to Buffy. "Buffy, do you think we will be able to go home after we find Dawn?" she asked.

Buffy sighed. "I don't know, Will," she said as she looked at Jaheira. "To tell the truth I'm no longer sure I want to go home." Willow followed her gaze and nodded in understanding. "Sure I miss Xander, Tara, Giles, and even Anya and Spike. But we have friends here now. No matter what we do we will be breaking someone's heart by staying or leaving."

"I would like to see Tara again," said Willow. "But if we don't find a way home I don't think I will be as sad as I thought I might be."

"Then it is settled if we can find a way home, good," said Buffy. "If not then we will be happy here as long as we are with friends. But if we do find a way home once we've found Dawn, I do not want to leave Aquarra till we can be assured of her safety."

"Agreed," Willow said.

"And maybe I can come with you," Aquarra said as Buffy looked at her. "Buffy, you have become to me like a sister. And by association so has Willow. If you end up finding a way to return home I want to go with you."

Buffy shook her head. "Our world is like nothing you have ever experienced. You would find yourself out of place there."

Aquarra shrugged. "As long as I am with you Buffy I would not care," she said as she looked at Jaheira. "Jaheira you know more about the customs of the people of Faerun. Is there a ceremony of some sort to make someone your sister?"

Jaheira nodded. "There is such a ceremony. It would need to be performed by a priestess of Sune." She looked at the Buffy and Aquarra and knew such a ritual would not be needed.

Aquarra nodded and turned back to Buffy. "When we find such a priestess I would like it if we could perform the ritual—you and I, and then when we find Dawn, I can then perform the ritual with her as well."

Buffy thought about it for a moment. "That would mean of course we would not leave you here if we returned home. I would not be willing to leave a sister behind if I could help it. If we do find such a way you should be prepared to say goodbye to your friends. It is likely you would never see them again."

Aquarra nodded. "I understand."

Hours later Buffy opened her eyes onto the first blue sky she'd seen in quite some time. She was immediately aware of the warm pressure of her Jaheira at her side. Jaheira's head was resting on her right arm. Buffy closed her eyes and just lay there, not wanting to wake Jaheira.

But Jaheira was already awake as she asked, "Where's Xan?"

Buffy was up with a start her Slayer senses on high alert. As she searched for the missing elf, she spotted him walking back and let out a sigh of relief. "Where were you?"

"Sorry, came close to getting caught a couple times," said Xan.

"What did you find?" asked Aquarra as Jaheira whistled quietly for the horses, and one of the animals responded with a snort.

"I don't know much about the Zhantarim. But I don't think this is the Zhentarim we're following. They look more like bandits to me, but they're organized, and there are indeed too many for the five of us to defend against. I managed to get inside and poke around a bit, though and I found these."

He pulled two items from his rucksack: a neatly folded sheet of parchment and a rather impressive book. It was the book that caught Willow's eye. She held out one big hand to Xan, who gently placed the book in her grip. It felt odd—like leather but smoother, somehow more dry. It was a strange, gray-green color. She saw on the cover a symbol. It was a carved relief that actually looked like a human skull, split in half and somehow bonded to the center of a circle in which tear drops—or drops of blood—were sprinkled. The binding was two long, surprisingly delicate steel hinges. She opened the book and found it a neatly ordered, skillfully illuminated text in a language she couldn't readily identify. She turned a page, and there was a line drawing of a woman tied to a wooden ring and—she closed the book with a loud thud.

"Are you all right?" Jaheira asked her.

"I'm fine," Willow said. "Where did you find this book?"

Xan looked confused, surprised by the question. "It was on a stand in one of the tents. It seemed important, expensive, I don't know. No one was around, so I took it. What is it?"

"Evil," Willow said simply. Buffy, Aquarra, Imoen, Xan and Jaheira exchanged confused looks. "It's—it should go somewhere safe."

"We could bring it to Candlekeep," suggested Aquarra.

"That sounds like a good idea," said Buffy knowing from her time there that the monks would make sure any book brought to them was kept safe. She burst into movement, and at the same time the thick bushes a few yards from their camp site exploded into a loud rustle. Something big moved through the brush away from them, and she was following fast, her sword in her hand.

Buffy hit the wall of thorny growth fast and hard enough to break it down, and she found the other's path in less than a second. She took almost careless strides and was on the man in less than three heartbeats. And then just like when she had attacked Khalid something came over her and she thrust her sword hard through the man's retreating shoulders, and the blade came up and out of the man's mouth. The fleeing man didn't have time to scream.

His last breath was a gout of bright red blood. Buffy walked over him as he fell and came to a stop half a step past the man's head.

Willow, Aquarra, Jaheira and Xan burst through the brush behind her.

"I …" Buffy stuttered. She had just taken a man's life in cold blood. 'What is wrong with me,' she wondered. 'This is the second time the Slayer overcame me.'

"From the direction he is lying. I would say he was headed for the camp," said Xan. "You did the right thing or we would have been discovered."

"We should go," Jaheira said. "There'll be more."

"The map shows our next step, I think," Xan suggested.

"The map?" Willow asked.

"While you were reading that book," Jaheira said, "Xan was showing us the map he found … the parchment?"

Willow nodded.

"It shows the location of a mining camp," Xan said, "an Iron Throne mining camp deep in the Cloak Wood."

"So they're mining their own iron," Aquarra said, "to sell at a higher price when the Nashkel is shut down."

"They're hoarding iron in the camp here," Xan said, "I saw cart after cart of ore there."

"All this," Jaheira said, "for gold. I'm not looking forward to going into the Cloak Wood. I've heard stories …"

"Me too," Aquarra said.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

It had been two days since they'd left the hills and the bandit camp behind. "There are so many things that are wrong with this," Jaheira said, "I have no idea how to begin to—"

She stopped when Buffy put a finger to her lips and tipped her head to one side.

"Oh, my, yes," a ghoul said, emerging from the underbrush and considering the dead bandit hungrily. "Yes, this will do fine."

Jaheira could see Aquarra let out a silent breath. She tried not to breathe through her nose. The ghoul was downwind, but she could still detect traces of his moldering flesh stink. She put a hand over her mouth to calm the gag reflex.

"How did you get yourself up there?" the ghoul asked the silent body.

"I helped him," Aquarra said. The ghoul yelped, leaped backward awkwardly, and fell into a prickly bush. "Come on out, Korak."

"That you?" the ghoul asked, only the top of his gray, dead head showing from behind the bush.

"Come on out," Aquarra said, standing, sword in hand, behind the fallen tree.

"What is it you want, Aquarra?" Korak asked.

"You know this ghoul?" asked Jaheira as she finally began to understand the reason for bringing the bandit's body with them.

"Yeah," said Aquarra. "I met him outside of Candlekeep once when we were younger." She turned to Korak. "We need a guide in the Cloak Wood."

"Of course," Korak answered. "Follow me."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The spider was brown with irregular blotches of black and white spattered across its spherical body and eight armored legs. It was about as big around as Jaheira's thumb—not the biggest spider in Faerun, but it felt like it to Jaheira. She let out an embarrassingly impish yelp as the thing dropped on her shoulder. She jumped, and that served only to startle the spider, which proceeded toward the closest dark shelter it could find—Jaheira's modest but well-rounded cleavage.

She patted at her hardened leather bustier and said, "Oh for Mielikki's sake," in a shrill, scared voice. "Damn it… damn it."

"What is it?" Buffy asked.

Jaheira didn't answer her at first. She just proceeded to remove her leather armor.

"What are you doing?" Willow wondered.

Jaheira managed to say, "Spider," and sort of hop-stepped in place as she got her bustier off. Her undershirt was loose, and she started to shake it.

"Are you all right?" Xan called from somewhere in the thick vegetation.

"Oh gods," Jaheira cried, "it bit me—it's biting me!"

A tear burst from her eye. She was trying to pull her blouse off, and Buffy helped her. The fabric tore away with an echoing sound, and Buffy swatted the spider from between Jaheira's exposed breasts. The spider jumped nimbly onto Buffy's right hand, and she slapped it with her left, leaving only a crinkling of legs in a brown spot.

"It went right—" Jaheira started to say. Buffy looked at Jaheira, naked from the waist up, and her mouth came open. Jaheira hadn't noticed till she said something. Only one other person had noticed, all the others had turned their eyes as they blushed. Jaheira gaze met Buffy's as she blushed. "It's all right, I have another in my pack."

"Xan," Buffy called, "watch for spiders."

"Yes," Korak said, his voice loud. "Spiders, for certain."

Buffy turned to look at the ghoul. "You're here as a guide, so guide or spiders will be the least of your problems," she said before returning her gaze to Jaheira. "Do you need?"

"I got another blouse in my pack," Jaheira said,

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

They walked for another hour or more through nearly impassable undergrowth.

Buffy stopped short. The spider was nearly the size of one of her hands, and it was sitting in the middle of an elaborate web not more than an inch from her nose. The spider remained motionless while Buffy took a step back and drew her sword. The blade scraped against a tree branch behind her, and Buffy heard Xan say, "Wait!" but she didn't hesitate to split the big arachnid in half with a single well-placed slice. The spider's chitinous body broke open, and hundreds—maybe thousands—of tiny baby spiders burst out of the otherwise empty shell and scattered in the undergrowth and along the web.

Jaheira shuddered visibly and said, "Let's get out of here. Let's just get out of here."

"Not long now," Korak muttered, his head just visible over the bulk of a huge fallen tree.

Jaheira spun on the ghoul and said, "You'll not eat me, ghoul, you'll not live to taste—" she stopped to flick away one of the baby spiders. She screamed loud and long out of frustration, anger, and revulsion.

She put her hands in her hair and ruffled it violently, her finger sticking in a tangle. At least one spider shot out of her hair.

A spider landed on Willow's left cheek, and she brushed it off hard enough to kill it and smear guts across her face.

"Mielikki has turned away from this wood," Jaheira said, as much to herself as to the others.

"Spiders are just… spiders," Aquarra offered.

"Yes, they are," Jaheira replied, "as much a part of the order of nature as anything, but I'd prefer they didn't … order on my … nature."

"Get us there. Now," said Buffy to Korak.

The ghoul nodded and turned to continue on its way. Everyone tried to avoid the crawling web and continue after the ghoul. Willow stood there for a while, brushing away the occasional spider, then followed.

"That's it," Aquarra said, "we're going back."

Korak stopped and turned to look at Aquarra. "Back?"

"That's it," Aquarra said simply.

"You're leading us into some sort of spider … spider …" Aquarra stammered, searching for the right word, "… spider hell."

"Let's just go," Jaheira said, her voice weak and quivering. From the moment the spider climbed into Jaheira's armor and bit her between her breasts, the number and size of the spiders they encountered quickly increased. It was already dark in the thick forest, but it was obvious that the sun was going down. The shadows were getting deeper and could conceal ever more, ever larger arachnids.

Jaheira itched at her chest and tussled her hair again. She constantly scratched at something on the back of her neck. "Let's just go," she said again.

"Not much farther," the ghoul objected. "I'm guiding you. I'm guiding you."

"You're dragging us through a sea of spiders," Buffy countered, "toward what? What are you bringing us to?"

"The mine," Korak pressed. "I'm taking you to the mine. Follow … follow …"

The ghoul made quick hand gestures, beckoning them forward. Each and every one of them had enough and didn't move.

"No more, Korak," Aquarra said. "Get us out of here, or I'll let Buffy kill you, and we can take our chances on our own."

"As you wish," the ghoul said, bowing showily. "As you wish, good miss." Korak turned and continued in the same direction as before.

Jaheira marched off behind the ghoul and said, "Let's just go."

Everyone else turned and followed Korak and Jaheira who were loudly thrashing through the spider-infested wood.

There was a loud rustle in the undergrowth behind them. Then the rustle subsided behind them, the creature, whatever it was, didn't attack.

The trees gave way to a clearing, a clearing full of webs of all sizes, shapes, and levels of complexity, from simple strands hanging from one twisted branch to another. Things that looked like nests crawled with tiny spiders, and in one enormous web, with strands easily thicker than the stoutest rope anyone ever seen, was a spider the size of a cow. Its bulbous, black body was stippled with red.

Smoking green venom was dripping from its twitching mandibles.

Jaheira just stood there with her mouth open and her eyes bulging. She'd gone past panic, past the ability to scream.

Korak shuffled his feet, trying to decide which direction to run away in, and said, "Oops."

In the center of the clearing was what they could only describe as a building.


	11. Chapter 11: Cloak Wood Pt 2

**Chapter 11: Cloak Wood Pt 2**

The giant spider looked up and screamed. The sound was echoed by a shrill, mindless shriek from Jaheira. The ettercaps—the bristle-furred humanoids—chose that moment to attack, or maybe the giant spider's scream had been an order. When they came out of the spider-infested undergrowth they quickly met their charge. This set the ettercaps off balance, and the first one to the group had to make its opening attack alone.

The things were about as tall or taller as most of the group. They moved no faster than an average man, but their thin—yes, spidery—limbs flailed wildly and made them appear fast. One that charged Aquarra opened a fang-lined mouth, and Aquarra almost gagged at the smell of its venom. She swiped at the thing with her sword, but the blade sliced across too high and only clipped off the tip of one of its long, pointed ears. The ettercap yelped but pressed its attack.

Buffy moved in to attack another one that had burst from the growth near her. A long-fingered hand raked sharp claws across her left arm, drawing blood and a string of curses from the Slayer.

One managed to tear into Xan's right leg with those awful, needlelike claws. He grunted, lifted his left leg and kicked out at the thing, hitting it squarely in one sagging breast. The stubbly fur crinkled under the blow, and the creature let out a stinking breath all at once and fell to its knees.

Jaheira and Willow stood back as they cast memorized spells and hit any that came near with their quarterstaffs.

Buffy brought her sword around and up, and then sliced down hard into a monster's right shoulder. It didn't make a sound as she hit an artery. Blood came out of it fast and pulsing with the thing's rapid, but rapidly decreasing heartbeat. It put one spindly hand to the wound, and its lifeless gray eyes rolled in its round, bulldog skull.

Aquarra felt a raking pain in her left shoulder, and she jumped back one step—just in time. The only unwounded ettercap scratched her, but she had avoided a venom-dripping bite.

Xan stabbed one fast and hard with the tip of his sword. He pierced flesh, clicked off bone, and came out of the ettercap's back with a pronounced popping noise.

Willow and Jaheira were wrapped tightly in what looked like a net made from thick, strong strands of spider silk. Several of the hulking humanoid spider things were dragging them harshly through prickly underbrush and nest after nest of tiny crawling spiders. They were gasping for air, gasping to scream and scream again.

Aquarra, Xan and Buffy took one step forward intending to rescue Willow and Jaheira. But they tripped; their ankles were tangled quickly in a thick, adhesive rope. An ettercap moved in at Buffy as she flipped over and slashed out at the strand, trying to avoid cutting off her own feet. Next to her the others were doing the same.

Buffy reached out far, and her sword came down into an ettercap's distended belly instead of along the length of the web. The silk strand was coming out of the ettercap's abdomen, and the web mixed with blood and lost its cohesion when the thing died shrieking. Hot blood and liquid spider silk splashed on her legs, and she kicked the sticky substance, almost getting it off her leg before more, thicker, stickier strands of the stuff fell on them all from above. Their sword arms were pinned, so they risked tossing the blade to their other hands. Once the swords were in their other hands they brought the blades up to protect their faces.

The giant spider they'd first seen sitting in the middle of its enormous web was coming down the face of a bark-stripped tree, coming fast and hard at Buffy, Aquarra, and Xan, poison oozing from between its sideways jaws.

Buffy sliced her sword back to her left, then right. The spider paused, and she rolled all the way over to one side, hoping to escape the web. Her hair was being pulled painfully, and a strand of web stuck to her neck. She, Xan and Aquarra were flies now, a meal for this eight-legged predator, and like a fly, their desperate struggles only served to cement their captivity in the sticky web.

"Hold still," the spider said, and they each flinched at the sound of its voice. It was a sound like glass being drawn across steel, and it set their hair on end as much from the sound of it as from the horror that such a creature had the power of speech at all. "Hold still, humans, and let Kriiya drain you. Let Kriiya drain you dry."

Xan screamed and lunged upward. He feinted once, and the spider fell for it, twitching quickly to one side. Xan fed the thing his sword, and the blade went into the spider's mouth over a foot before meeting resistance. Blood and poison gushed from the dying thing's mouth, and it convulsed so hard that Xan nearly lost his grip on his sword. Its legs curled up under it with a loud crinkling sound

The thing was falling right at Xan, eyes and mouth closed tightly to avoid the horrid poison, pulled as hard as he could and shifted the thing's weight off the tree in a slow semicircle. It hit the undergrowth, and the thing's shell cracked, sending a gushing wave of slime, poison, and stomach acids sizzling through the webs and vegetation.

"Jaheira! Willow!" Buffy screamed as Minsc got her and Aquarra free.

"Jaheira! Willow!" Aquarra echoed.

But there was no answer.

"Jaheira, Willow," Buffy said, "I'm coming."

"They are in there," Korak said. Buffy, followed by Xan and Aquarra looked up with a start. They'd forgotten about the ghoul. "They dragged the ladies into there." Korak pointed, and the group made to charge him. The ghoul ran away, and they turned in the direction the ghoul had pointed, to the center of the hellish clearing.

It was a building.

It looked like a domed hut but of massive size. It was a mass of brilliant white and pale gray, smooth in places, but irregular. It was made of spider silk, but there was something else none of them could make out clearly until they got closer. The thing was constructed from bodies—human bodies, mostly—drained of blood and guts, desiccated and cocooned in spider silk to act as buttresses for this inhuman domicile.

None of them had time to be sickened by the sight any more than they had time to be impressed with its construction. Jaheira and Willow had been pulled inside there and the ghoul had run off.

Spiders and what could only be baby ettercaps scattered when the group burst into the chamber. The adult ettercaps who had dragged Jaheira and Willow into the dome spun on them and attacked without pausing to think. Buffy went at them like a wild animal and actually laughed when she brought the last one down. The ettercaps lay at her feet, their death spasms subsiding, and the group looked up.

What they saw there made them take two steps back. Even Buffy who had seen her fair share of death as the Slayer knelt beside the others and heaved once, then again, before she like the others noticed that even the floor of the place was made from the desiccated husks of dead humans. She vomited into the gaping, screaming face of a mummified woman, and her hair stood up on end, and she scurried away repeating

Willow and Jaheira whimpered, and they all stood up fast. They were alive, they saw then, wrapped in the sticky net they'd been dragged in. Directly over their web-wrapped forms was what might only have been described as "the queen." Webs hung in loose strands, draped from the dead-body walls.

Suspended in the center of the open space was a thing that once must have been a woman, maybe a human woman. It was tremendously, unnaturally fat, bloated and purple. Fold after fold of pale flesh dripped off the massive form, and it was dark enough in there that they couldn't see clearly what it was that moved in and out of those folds of flesh—spiders, certainly, and there were humanoid forms, small and furry. The group realized the spiders and their humanoid cousins were using this woman to breed, using her like a nursery, like an incubator, and they each retched again.

"Am I so hideous?" the woman asked, with a voice like a pig rooting in slop. "Yes, I suppose I must be."

Jaheira screamed and said, "No, oh no."

Sections of the woman's pale, bloated flesh had been stripped away, eaten by her thousand crawling charges. Her face was a bruised, purple, venom-soaked mockery of the human form. One roll of flab actually fell across her forehead, blocking one eye. They were keeping her alive in here, alive but immobile, paralyzing her maybe with their poisons just to use her as a breeding ground.

"Jaheira," Buffy said. "Willow."

"Buffy," Jaheira gasped, "Buffy, help me…"

Buffy crossed to Willow and Jaheira. She glanced at the bloated woman whose one porcine eye followed her path.

"We're all here," Buffy said, and those two words seemed to relax both Jaheira and Willow. She looked how tightly Jaheira and Willow were wrapped in the sticky webs, and she wasn't sure that even with her Slayer strength she would be able to free them.

"Fire," the bloated woman said. "Take fire to the webs, and you can free them."

"What are you?" Aquarra asked.

"A victim," she answered. "My name is Centeol."

"What have you done?" Aquarra asked her. "What could you possibly have done to deserve this?"

"I fell in love," she said sadly, "and that was enough. Do I have to beg?"

"What?"

"Kill me," she said.

"Xan," said Buffy. "Kill her."

Xan held his sword in both hands, reached up as high as he could, and pierced the cursed woman's flesh with a single powerful stroke. Centeol grunted and died as her bloated abdomen ripped open. A torrent of blood, spent venom, spiders of a thousand species, and unborn ettercaps poured over him. There was so much of it; it knocked him off his feet.

Buffy and Aquarra cut free Jaheira and Willow and they helped them out of that evil dome, and when they got into the tree line they started running. Branches and thorns poked and ripped at them, but they didn't care. They kept running until they got to a fast-running stream. It must have been several miles from the spider wood. It was dark and cold.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"There are men, and elves," Jaheira reported quietly when they had found the mine, "and a large number of dwarves. They're in chains."

"Slaves," Aquarra agreed.

Jaheira twitched, brushed away a spider that wasn't there, then shivered in the cool air. She wasn't comfortable in the tree. She kept looking at it like it might come to life and grab her, grab her and drag her off.

"There're too many," Jaheira said, nodding at a cluster of guards. The men were obviously sellswords, dressed in piecemeal armor. There were no uniforms or heraldry of any kind evident in the mining camp, at least not on the edge of it, which was all Buffy, Aquarra, and Jaheira's vantage point allowed them to see.

They'd found the mining camp almost by accident. After escaping the spiders they had wandered the Cloak Wood in more or less complete silence, each trying to get past the experience. They'd heard voices first, of guards and slaves, then the sound of whips and the clatter of chains. The camp was set up in a clearing at least as broad as the one occupied by the spiders. In the center of this clearing, though, was a low hill. Cut into the side of the hill was a wide, square opening propped up with stout wood planks. Iron tracks led into the mine, and there were a number of functional hand carts, some filled with the dull rocks

Buffy had come to know as iron ore.

"So what do we do?" Aquarra asked.

"We can't just rush in there and attack," Buffy answered. "These people must be expecting someone to wander past here, even in the middle of the Cloak Wood. They must have a trail somewhere to get that ore from here to the bandit camp. Xan said they were hoarding ore there."

"With the Nashkel mines closed up," Jaheira said, "they'll be able to get a good price for these rocks in Baldur's Gate. They won't sell it there yet, though. They'll wait until the war starts or maybe until the war is finished."

Aquarra eyed her closely and asked. "You're still convinced that someone wants to start a war, that someone wants Amn and Baldur's Gate to rip each other's throats out?"

"I don't have any idea what I believe anymore, Aquarra, I really don't. I was sent—I came here to find out…" said Jaheira.

"Oy, you boys there!" a gruff voice called out. Buffy thought they or the others still on the ground might have been discovered and put a hand on her sword just in case. "Get that cart loaded onto the wagon as soon as it stops. I want it on its way to Beregost by high sun."

The speaker was a round but well-muscled man with a shaved head. He was wearing simple peasant clothes but swaggered and spoke with the confidence of command. The guards turned when he spoke but not to the leader. They looked at a group of dwarves—half a dozen of them—all chained together. The dwarves spared mute glances at the guards and shambled reluctantly over to the round man. One of the dwarves said something, but they were too far away to hear.

The round man spoke next, but his loud voice was drowned out by the clattering rumble of an approaching wagon. It was a stout, well-built vehicle pulled by two strong, wide-hoofed horses and driven by a short man in chain mail. The driver brought the wagon to a stop and quickly jumped down from his seat. He approached the leader with a limp, and the dwarves started to slowly transfer big chunks of iron ore from one of the steel mining carts to the wagon. The leader held up a hand to silence the driver and motioned to one of the guards. The sellsword stepped up and took his whip to one of the dwarves.

Jaheira turned her head from the sight of the torture. The lashing had its intended effect, though. The dwarves started loading faster.

"They seem to be concentrating their guards on this side of the camp," Buffy said.

"It's the only path—the only way in," Jaheira offered.

"They don't expect anyone to get through the spiders," Aquarra said, "and whatever else this cursed wood might have in store for someone wandering in."

"So?" Jaheira asked.

"So," Buffy said, "we go around the back."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

At first, the slaves they freed refused to even run away. They looked at them suspiciously, didn't even want to speak at first.

"Go!" Willow whispered harshly, her voice echoing with a disturbingly distinct metallic clang.

One man, dirty, weak, sweating, and coughing with every other breath, said, "I know … my place, mistress. Please don't … test me."

Willow exhaled sharply and just turned away, pressing their backs against the rough stone wall of the mine. She looked back at the five men now standing in a pile of broken chains. Two of them looked at each other, then at her, and one of them smiled. Willow nodded in response and slipped into the side passage.

"Willow," Jaheira whispered. "They won't all run, will they?"

"They think I'm one of the guards, testing their loyalty," said Willow.

"They'll get the idea," Jaheira said. "We can't carry them out."

"This way," Buffy said as they went off deeper into the tunnel.

The mine was lit periodically by oil lanterns hung from hooks driven into the stone ceiling. Some of the slaves were elves, most were dwarves, so they could see in the dark. The humans tended to work only pushing the heavy carts on their tracks, so they didn't need much light to work.

"Here," Aquarra whispered and ducked into a side passage almost too quickly for any of the group to see where she'd gone.

They followed her and came into the short passage. Aquarra was whispering to a group of dwarves who were sitting on the floor. Their picks were leaning on the wall, and they were slothfully munching some kind of jerky, and one of them had a big canteen.

"You have got to be kidding," one of the dwarves said in heavily accented common.

"We can break your chains," Aquarra told him, "but you'll have to take it from there."

"How many have you freed?" the dwarf, whose beard was long even for a dwarf and going gray in patches, asked.

"Almost two dozen so far," Willow told him quietly.

"Including you five," Jaheira added.

"How many dwarves, lass?" the dwarf asked pointedly.

"You five make twelve," Jaheira answered.

The dwarf grinned, showing gray, yellow, and broken teeth. His voice was slow, dull, like the life had been lashed out of it. He scratched at the iron manacle around his left ankle that trailed a thick chain to the left ankle of the next dwarf in line. They were fastened together that way, in series, all five of them.

"A dozen dwarves'll do ya, lass," the dwarf said, making his four companions grin. "The name's Yeslick. Looks like we got a revolt on our hands."

The Iron Throne slaver died screaming, and Buffy, despite the fact she had one time vowed never to kill a human being, thought the man was just pitiful. She glanced over at Yeslick, who had just finished beating the last guard to death with a length of chain, and said, "Looks like you're free, my friend."

The dwarf grinned, and then winced. A huge purple-black bruise blossomed on Yeslick's forehead, making any sort of facial movement painful.

"Thanks to you," he said, slowly, his voice muffled by his own throat.

At first they all thought the dwarf must be as slow of mind as he was of speech. Hours later, when the Iron Throne slavers were dead or scattered into the forest, they realized that Yeslick was anything but stupid. The dwarf fought with foresight and experience, and a calm certainty that he was smarter than his opponents. The Iron Throne had scraped the bottom of the barrel for recruits at this camp, though. None of them knew how many inexperienced mercenaries they killed.

"How did you come here, Yeslick?" Xan asked, hoping he wouldn't insult the steady dwarf by asking. "How did these fools manage to get a dwarf like you in chains?"

Yeslick laughed and sat heavily on a loose rock. "If it was these fools who chained me," he said, tossing the chain away to let it clatter and shed drips of the guard's blood on the uneven floor, "I would have to kill myself for the shame of it. It was Reiltar himself who done me in."

"Reiltar?" Aquarra asked

The dwarf looked up at Aquarra and squinted at her in the dim light. "Come to the surface with me, lass," the dwarf said, "and I'll tell you my story."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

 _"This doesn't sound right, Yeslick," Turmod of Clan Orothiar said, his gravelly voice echoing in the tight mine shaft. "Hear?"_

 _Turmod took his heavy iron pick to the wall again, and there was—at least to the assembled dwarves—a noticeable change in the tenor of the ring. Yeslick was in charge of this cutting party, and he'd been charged with thirty feet a day, and he was going to keep that goal. The engineers had sent them here, pointed them in the right direction, and gone off to another part of the mine as soon as Yeslick and his crew of fifty had started digging. Dwarf engineers had made mistakes before, but not Orothiar engineers. When they decided a tunnel should go in one direction, it always headed straight for whatever ore they were looking for. This time they were after iron, and odd clang aside, Yeslick felt confident there was iron in the direction in which they were digging._

 _"Keep going," Yeslick told his crew._

 _"You heard it—" Turmod started. Yeslick interrupted by holding up one rough hand._

 _"At least send for one of the engineers, Yeslick," Turmod offered._

 _Yeslick felt a wave of relief wash over him. If he got an engineer out here he'd only appear cautious, not cowardly. He wouldn't have actually made a decision, so he wouldn't ever have to back it up. Yeslick knew he was too young to lead a mining detail and so did the miners who followed him. He was a smith by trade and by training, but every dwarf in clan Orothiar took a turn in the mines, and this was Yeslick's._

 _He'd "earned" the leadership of the crew by impressing one of the mine masters. He'd impressed the master with his smithery, of course, not his digging, but it didn't matter to that particular mine master. The engineers would point them in the right direction, all Yeslick really had to do was occasionally remind his crew to pause for the occasional sip of water or taste of jerked rothe. Dwarves liked to work, liked to dig, so he wouldn't have to force them to dig, or beg to keep them on task. He did have to stop to make periodic measurements, though, to make sure they were digging in the right direction, but that wasn't too difficult._

 _"Jomer," Yeslick said, and a young dwarf he'd gone to reading classes with dropped his pick and looked over at him, "go fetch the engineers. They should be down the thirty-third shaft by now. Tell them we've run into something… or are about to."_

 _Jomer nodded and scurried off into the darkness._

 _Yeslick looked at a smiling Turmod and said, "Well, don't just stand there grinning. We can keep digging till they get here. Whatever's in that rock is still a ways away."_

 _Turmod, apparently content that the engineer would be on his way, turned around and began banging away at the rough stone at the end of the tunnel, oblivious to the danger that hid only a few feet beyond._

 _As the years turned into decades, Yeslick would think back to that moment time and time again. He always found it difficult to believe that the strange sound of the picks clanging off stone was the only signal. He couldn't believe there wouldn't have been a trickle first, even a spot of wetness or a spurt or something. The stone wasn't even wet, didn't even absorb any of the water behind it. He was a good smith and a bad miner, but he was a dwarf, and he should have been able to tell that there was a lake of freezing-cold water only a few inches away. He blamed himself for what happened next, but as the years dragged on, he came to accept the truth. It was the engineers—the infallible Orothiar engineers—who had pointed them in the wrong direction. It wasn't his fault._

 _The water came out all at once. They were working, Yeslick, Turmod, and the others, banging away at rock and then, just all at once, they were underwater. There was a loud sound right away, then an eerie silence. Yeslick held his breath, closed his eyes, prayed to Moradin, and was tossed like a cork in hurricane seas for what seemed like forever. He'd timed himself, years later, and never made it past about a hundred and fifty heartbeats, but he could swear that day he had held his breath for hours._

 _Eyes closed, right hand tight over his nose and mouth, his left arm flopping free to strike rocks and the bodies of his crew at hard, slamming, random intervals, Yeslick rode a backwash out the top of the tunnel and into a natural cave system he never knew existed. He came to the surface a few times and gasped for air reflectively, though he didn't have any clear, conscious thought for his own life then. He came up for air maybe half a dozen times before he finally passed out._

 _He woke up coughing, some impossible to determine length of time later—days? He lived—along with two members of his crew, including Turmod and a handful of others who had found ways out—by sheer luck. What was left of clan Orothiar wanted nothing to do with them. They dug in the wrong place, the elders said. Turmod killed himself. It was his pick that made the final strike that let in the water that destroyed the mine. Yeslick went away, just started walking, and ended up in Sembia. He got work doing the one thing he could always get work doing. He was a good smith, and as the years passed, creeping ever closer to a century away from the mines of the Orothiar, he let himself forget._

 _And then he met Reiltar._

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Reiltar took an interest in my work," Yeslick told the group. "I'm a good smith, and many a man in Urmlaspyr—all of Sembia—had heard my name. I did some work for him, some specialty stuff that looking back… well, it gives me the heebie-jeebies, I can tell you that much."

"Damn me for the gnome-kissing dolt I must be," the dwarf continued, "but I counted that lanky, elitist bastard a friend. I hired on with him eventually, did some work—some weaponsmithing even—for this trade group of his. He never explained to me what the Iron Throne was, and I never asked. Frankly, I didn't care.

"I used to live here, in these very tunnels—well, these are new, but tunnels near here. Before we hit that lake other crews hit iron, and lots of it. Reiltar, he got me drunk, got me talking about the old times, got me crying about the old times. I let him in on a strike, the way he saw it. He brought me back here in chains to work it for him, afraid I'd claim it for my own, maybe, or in the name of a clan that's long moved on, without me, to the Bloodstone Lands. I'd have given that piece of rothe dung the mine, he could have had every nugget of iron in the place. I was in Sembia, and though I didn't like it much, I sure as a gnome's curious didn't want to come back here."

"This Reiltar," Aquarra asked finally, "he leads the Iron Throne?"

"What are you here for, girl, if you don't know that?"

"He runs this gang of his from Sembia?"

The dwarf didn't answer, just smiled.

"I may have something," Willow said. "I saw a sigil on the crates of supplies and tools, and on one of the wagons. All this stuff is coming from the Seven Suns …"

"It is a trading coster," Aquarra said, "in Baldur's Gate. It's close enough to look into, but our new friend Yeslick here tells us we're looking for a man named Reiltar—and he's in Sembia, not Baldur's Gate."

"Oh, no," Yeslick said, "Reiltar's never been out here. He has a man—I don't know his name—in Baldur's Gate. Before you go, his man in Baldur's Gate took a girl, about maybe fourteen or fifteen years of age."

"Brunette hair?" Buffy asked. "About my height? Blue eyes?"

"Yes," Yeslick replied. "Do you know her?"

"Dawn," Buffy said.


	12. Chapter 12: Baldur's Gate

**Chapter 12: Baldur's Gate**

Baldur's Gate.

Buffy, Aquarra, Xan, Willow and Jaheira picked up a rickety ferry on the south bank of the River Chionthar.

They'd been on the road for four and a half days and finally they approached the city across the gray water.

The ferry rocked violently in the cold water, and Aquarra grunted at the queasy feeling already beginning to take hold in her stomach. The rocking came more from the incompetence of the ferryman than the currents or wind.

The city sat at a point in the wide river where the water took a sudden bend to the north before continuing on to the sea. The bend in the river made a sort of bay, and the city proper bent around that bay in a roughly horseshoe shape.

The ferry passed the southernmost tower, and Jaheira appraised it ambivalently as they passed by.

Two soldiers peered over the side at them; their faces only pale dots against the gray sky.

"Which is the Seven Suns?" Jaheira asked the old ferryman.

"The Seven Suns?" the ferryman asked. "Yeah, I 'eard of them. Which what's there's?"

"Warehouse?" Jaheira asked. "Or maybe they have a pier to themselves?"

"I think they do," the old man answered gravelly. "See that first big pier—the one with all the little piers sticking out of it?"

Jaheira nodded.

"Well, it ain't that one."

Jaheira turned on the old man, and her smile was disturbingly unamused. "It was a simple enough question, ferryman."

"I'm not a tour guide, missy," the ferryman spat back.

Jaheira sighed and surveyed the city silently for the next half an hour as the old man ferryman and his crew maneuvered the wide boat to the edge of the pier. A set of crumbling stone steps led up to the quay.

Someone spat on Jaheira as they walked through the crowded streets from the ferry landing to the Elfsong Tavern.

"It's because I am Amnian," Jaheira tried to explain. "The Iron Throne is getting their way, if slowly."

The looks on the faces of the crowd made it clear that if there were sides to be taken, the spitter would have plenty of locals on his side.

The Elfsong was an institution in Baldur's Gate, a place where people could find work. Adventurers and treasure seekers came here for information, thieves came here to lie low and spend their takes, information was exchanged, pacts made, hearts broken, and noses bloodied.

"We need to eat," Buffy said. "While you send for your friend, Xan."

Buffy paid the bartender a gold piece—nearly the rest of the coin she'd made arm wrestling miners and Amnian soldiers—to get Xan's message sent, ordered drinks and food, then rejoined the group.

"This friend of yours," Jaheira said, "he knows the Seven Suns?"

"If this trading coster operates in the Gate—if they wander past on occasion—Scar'll know them," said Xan.

"'The Gate'?" she asked.

Xan laughed and said, "It's what the locals call the city. You should use it, and maybe we should do something about our clothes, if being from Amn will get you spit on in the street."

"I don't hide who I am," Jaheira said, not managing to sound appropriately offended.

Suddenly the general tenor of the place changed. It was almost dead quiet, save for the rattling of a shutter in the wind, and a woman's singing. They scanned the room for the source of the ethereal voice, but no woman stood among the quiet, suddenly thoughtful patrons.

The voice was the most beautiful sound any of them had ever heard. It was a lone woman, singing a tune that played not with notes and sound but with the rhythms of heart and soul. The language was Elvish. There was a sense that putting words to this song, grounding this perfect play of tone and quaver, into the base, brutal bludgeoning of spoken language would be nothing short of a crime.

The song evaporated into the nothingness from which it came. Conversation started to spatter through the room, and by the time the tavern had returned to as close to normal as it ever would, the bartender stood at their table with a fine silver wineglass.

He offered a glass to Jaheira with a knowing smile, glanced pointedly at her ears and said, "A tallglass of elverquisst, on the house."

Xan nodded to the bartender. "It's a tradition," he told the others, "when an elf hears the lady sing for the first time."

"I'm only half," Jaheira said.

Xan was frankly amazed at how quickly Scar made it to the Elfsong. It was as if his friend had been expecting him.

It didn't take a seasoned warrior to see that Scar was just that. Everything about the strong man showed that he had many a battle, and many a command, under his belt. He and Xan embraced. Scar seemed happy to see Xan, happy and relieved.

"Xan, you old cur," the man said, "where have you been?"

"About," said Xan. "I returned home for some time. Sit." He motioned Scar to a chair at their crowded table, now cluttered with empty stew bowls, wineglasses, and pewter flagons.

"Been travelling long?" Scar asked facetiously, eyeing the mess instead of sitting.

"A lifetime," Xan answered. "Buffy, Aquarra, Willow, Jaheira, this is my good friend, who goes by the name Scar. If he asks you if you want to see what gave him that name, please refuse, or he won't be my friend anymore."

"Scar," Buffy said. She wanted to stand, knew it would be impolite not to, but she just couldn't. She was exhausted. "Please join us."

"Actually, I thought we might go upstairs," Scar said, turning to Xan.

"Will a candle do it?" Xan asked, referring to the Elfsong's policy of renting their private upstairs rooms by the length of time it took for one candle to burn down.

"I've made the arrangements," Scar said, motioning them to one of the dark, twisted staircases and they followed him up the tight, treacherous steps. They sat at a table surrounded by a richly embroidered curtain. A small oil lamp sat in the center of the table, casting a dim red glow that. Scar grew serious the moment he sat down. "Your message said you needed information, and my help."

Xan, sensing it was time for straight, serious talk said, "We need to know about a trading coster that we think is operating out of the Gate. They call themselves the Seven Suns."

Scar just stared at his friend, saying nothing for the longest time. Then he sighed and asked, "Why?"

"We think they're involved with some group—maybe a splinter of the Zhentarim," Jaheira broke in, "maybe some merchant cabal from Sembia—that calls itself the Iron Throne."

"This Iron Throne," Willow picked up, "is sabotaging the iron mines at Nashkel and other places."

"And Jaheira thinks they mean to start a war," Aquarra added.

"By Torm's hairy—" Scar said. He rubbed his face with his hands, his expression at least as worn as Jaheira's. "The Seven Suns is not just some merchant troupe that _might_ work out of the Gate. They're a serious force in the power structure here. This is the first I've heard of this Iron Throne of yours, but I've been worried about the Seven Suns—very worried—over the last tenday."

"What have you heard?" Buffy asked.

"The Seven Suns are the same as any merchant company. They're in it—whatever it might be today—for the gold. That doesn't make them terribly altruistic, but it certainly makes them predictable. Over the last … well, I'm not really sure how long … they've been neglecting too many of their usual trade ventures—routes that always gave them steady profits. We've asked them, through proper channels and all very up front, if anything's wrong. Jhasso—that's the man behind the Seven Suns and a well-known local—told us, in no uncertain terms, to mind our own business."

"But the business of the Gate is your business, no?" Xan asked.

"Indeed," Scar agreed, "but try telling that to Jhasso. It's like the man has lost his ability to play the game—you know the game we hate so much?"

"Politics," Buffy answered with a sigh.

"Well," Scar continued, "I've learned that the dreaded 'P' word does have its place, but in this case it's getting in the way. I can't find anything that Jhasso's doing that's openly contrary to the interests of the dukes, or the Flaming Fist, or the citizens of the Gate. My hands are tied. I can't launch an official investigation … unless you all have brought proof of this sabotaging of the mines?"

"Berrun, the mayor of Nashkel, has proof. We left it with him," said Jaheira. "Otherwise, no."

"Well," Scar said, "there are always alternatives."

"Just tell us where they are," Aquarra said.

"Wait, wait," Jaheira said weakly, holding up a hand, "We didn't come here to end up in somebody's dungeon. If this Jhasso is as connected as you say, sneaking around looking for… whatever we might go looking for, well, if we can't prove it now, who's to say we won't end up behind bars?"

"The Flaming Fist," Xan said to Jaheira, "is a mercenary company with a long and well-respected history. They've taken on the role of … well, everything in the Gate: city watch, army … jailers."

"And?" Jaheira prompted.

"And," Xan said, gesturing to Scar, "meet their second-in-command."


	13. Chapter 13: Seven Suns

**Chapter 13: Seven Suns**

"That's it," Xan said, "the sigil I recognized on the crates and wagons."

Buffy and Jaheira nodded and looked carefully at the big warehouse in the rapidly dimming light. Scar told them where to find the place, and they waited across the busy street as the crowds diminished with the setting sun.

Willow touched Buffy's arm, then pointed to a side door of the warehouse, visible from where they stood. A small group of sweaty teamsters emerged from the building, talking and laughing amongst themselves. They stayed together, probably on their way to one of the many dockside taverns, and eventually wandered out of sight.

The Seven Suns warehouse was built onto a long, wide stone pier and was only one of a dozen similar buildings, though by all accounts it was the biggest. The mark Xan recognized was emblazoned in red paint on the short end of the roughly rectangular brick structure.

Other than the one warped wooden door, they could see a handful of large windows, all of which were protected by heavy iron bars.

"It won't be easy to get in," Jaheira said.

"Agreed," Buffy said.

"I've never actually done this before," Jaheira said. "I mean, I've never broken into a building before. This is burglary, right? We're thieves now."

"What do you think we'll find in there?" Willow wondered.

"Carts and crates full of iron ore," Xan offered. "Maybe some of that iron-weakening potion…"

Jaheira laughed and said, "Yes, with huge labels that say: Iron-Weakening Potion, Made in Baldur's Gate by the Iron Throne for all your iron-weakening needs."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Night came to Baldur's Gate, and no light was visible through the barred windows of the big building.

"No one's there," Buffy said. "It looks empty."

Xan nodded. "We should go."

The group followed Buffy across the street, trying not to draw undue suspicion. They got to the side door, and Jaheira tested the rusting iron handle.

"Locked," she whispered.

Buffy brushed Jaheira aside lightly and took hold of the handle. Then with Slayer strength she leaned sharply into the door, and it opened inward with a disturbingly loud crack. She opened the door quietly.

Inside there was only impenetrable darkness. They crept lightly into the expansive space. The whole building must have been one single room. They went through the building slowly, making a number of zigzagging turns to avoid stacks of big wooden crates.

Buffy stopped abruptly and uttered a barely audible shush. It took a second and then the others heard the noise as well. It was so faint at first they'd assumed it was coming from outside, from the nearly empty street. Voices, deep and resonant male voices, muffled by some intervening structure, echoed in the darkness.

Buffy motioned for the others to be quiet as they started moving again. She led them up to a door; the voices were louder now but still muddy and undefined. The speakers were trying to keep their voices down. She knelt down at the keyhole and looked through it.

From this rather limited perspective Buffy couldn't make out much of the room beyond. There was a wood floor, same as the big warehouse room.

Something moved, possibly a man, maybe an elf—humanoid at least. The figure was in silhouette. She could hear what she thought were two voices. The light must have been coming from a torch or maybe a fireplace.

The two figures conversed a bit more, and Buffy still couldn't tell what they were saying. And then there was the sound of footsteps receding away.

"Steps," Jaheira whispered.

Buffy replayed what she had heard and then nodded in agreement as the sound of the receding footsteps quickly faded away.

Buffy stood slowly. And then they heard it from the other direction, the sound of someone approaching. "Move!" she ordered. She took three quick steps back and felt the weak wooden door pop open behind her as fifteen men came at them with wooden cudgels.

Instinctively Buffy reached for her sword. She and the others quickly made their way into the room and Jaheira slammed the door shut.

Jaheira mumbled the words to a prayer. The men outside pounded, then leaned against the door trying to push it in. Jaheira looked concerned, but continued her chanting, then closed her eyes.

They could hear a creaking noise, faint at first, then a loud cry of warping wood.

"They're pushing through!" Aquarra said.

"That was me…" Jaheira said.

The leader of the men clearly said the word "crossbows," and Jaheira jumped away from the door. The tips of two crossbow bolts appeared in the middle of the door. Those two were followed by a third, and they didn't wait for the fourth. Everyone turned and ran down the stairs.

"I warped the door closed, but—" Jaheira started to say when they ran right into a strange humanoid creature that was so unnaturally featureless, with smooth gray skin and big, dead eyes.

The creature hissed and as Buffy brought her sword up the creature blurred, bulged, and started to transform. Steel plates appeared from nothing, and its eyes shrank to human size, the dark-gray whitening quickly, and the center popping into a medium blue color. Buffy's sword came down and clanged on a metal plate, sending a spark flying. The thing grunted and fell backward.

The creature regained its balance, fully transformed now, it was a man, in plate armor and tabard emblazoned with the heraldry of the Flaming Fist who then ran away from them into the darkness. They then heard the crash of the door upstairs breaking free of its hinges. Feet scuffled on the wood floor above.

Jaheira said, "Let's go!" and tore off after the transformed creature.

As they ran another featureless gray creature appeared out of the darkness to their right. This one lifted a thin, gray-skinned hand, and they saw the flash of gold—it was wearing a ring—and the thing touched its cold fingertips to Jaheira's temple. They distinctly heard the creature whisper a single word: "Sizzle."

"Jaheira," Buffy yelled as Jaheira fell unconscious into her arms.

They were then led to a roll of cells and placed inside them.

Sometime later Jaheira tried to open her eyes and that act sent such a wave of pain through her head that she quickly regretted having awakened and shut her eyes again.

"—ake up, Jaheira!" Buffy said with concern.

Jaheira tried to answer Buffy but opening her mouth was pure agony, and all she was able to produce was a quavering groan.

"Jaheira," Buffy called, "you're alive." The relief in her voice was apparent.

"Who are you people?" someone asked in another cell.

"Who are you?" Willow answered.

Jaheira opened her eyes, and this time the pain was less intense.

"I asked you first," the man replied suspiciously.

"Jaheira," Buffy called, apparently from another cell, "say something."

"I'm thirsty," Jaheira said loudly, and the strange man laughed.

"Tell me about it," he said, "these doppelgangers are lousy hosts."

"Doppelgangers?" Xan asked.

"If you are doppelgangers," the stranger said, "I'm not telling you anything new. If you aren't, you might be able to help me get out of this."

"Who are you?" Willow asked.

"The name's Jhasso. I used to run this place."

Hours went by and then they heard the sounds of battle somewhere above them.

"Sounds like your friends are here," Jhasso said, trying to peer through the little window in his cell.

"Or yours," Jaheira offered.

"No," Jhasso answered Jaheira. "I don't have any friends."

"Not if there's been a doppelganger you making enemies all over the city for as long as you say you've been in there." Xan agreed.

"Damn them," Jhasso said, "I thought they were all in Waterdeep."

They heard a door nearby burst in suddenly. A body fell, and then steps rushed toward the cells.

Willow watched through the window of her cell as a young man wearing a blood-and sweat-stained tabard bearing the sign of the Flaming Fist stopped in front of her cell.

"Are you Jha-Jhasso?" the soldier asked breathlessly.

"He's in the cell behind you," Willow answered at the same time Jhasso called out, "Let me outta here, kid!"

The young soldier looked confused and frightened. "I have to get somebody," he said.

"You're not leaving us here!" Jaheira called, and the young man stopped at the sound of a woman's voice.

"Fear not, madam," the soldier said. "I'll be back for you!"

With that—and followed closely by some rude remarks from all of the captives—the young soldier hurried off up the corridor. They could hear voices and more footsteps going up the stairs and away into the diminishing sounds of battle.

"He's coming back for us, right?" Jhasso asked.

"He better damn well," Buffy said. "If not, I'm going to stick my fist so far up his—"

"Buffy!" Willow yelled cutting of her remark.

"Listen!" Jaheira said.

The fight was obviously over. They could hear the muffled sounds of male voices and heavy footsteps approaching. A door opened and there was the unmistakable sound of a man in heavy metal armor rapidly descending the stairs.

"Here, Gondsman," a steady, commanding voice said. Dawn could see a sturdy older man in shining, blood-spattered plate mail.

"Grand Duke Eltan," the young soldier who first found them said, "I found the key, m'lord."

"Very good, Julius," Eltan answered. "When the priest is finished, let these people out."

"Let us out now, for Gond's sake," Jhasso whined.

Willow saw a stout man in saffron robes stop at the door of Jhasso's cell and peer in. The priest went to each of the cell doors in turn.

"Two of the men are human, three of the women are human. One of the men is an elf," the priest said to Eltan, "and one of the women is a half-elf."

"Open them," Eltan said, and in seconds they were free.

"Thanks," Willow said. "By the way there are doppelgangers around."

"Indeed there are," the grand duke agreed, looking Xan and Buffy up and down suspiciously. "Two of them killed Scar."

"No," Jaheira breathed.

"And at least one has taken my place," Jhasso said. "I hope I still have a business to run, Eltan."

The grand duke looked at Jhasso impatiently and said, "You'll answer only for what you're responsible for, Jhasso. For now, just stay out of the way."

Jhasso nodded, obviously content to be let out of whatever was going to happen next.

"Your… dukeness…" Xan said.

"My name is Eltan," the grand duke said sternly. "You must be Xan."

"I am," Xan answered. "Scar was my friend. I'd like the opportunity to kill the things that took his life."

"Scar beat you to one," Eltan answered, "and I had the pleasure of disemboweling the second, but something tells me there's more killing to be done, my good man, if you've a mind to kill."

Xan nodded.

They were given very little time to clean up and eat. They then met in the foyer of Grand Duke Eltan's residence in the ducal palace.

A sleepy butler showed them into the grand duke's study.

"Enter," Eltan said motioning them into the richly-appointed room, "I apologize that there are not enough chairs to go around."

Eltan was sitting at his desk with his arm resting on the wide mahogany surface. A thin man with wiry gray hair and strange glass disks in wire frames resting on his nose, was bent over the grand duke's arm, carefully stitching a nasty cut. Eltan winced when the healer pulled the thread tight and cut off the end.

Eltan then gave orders in hushed tones to three Flaming Fist officers who stood on the other side of the big desk. Finished, he sent them off to the temple of Gond where they were to elicit the aid of priests who apparently had the ability to recognize a doppelganger when they saw one.

As the officers filed out and the healer collected his implements into a leather satchel, the grand duke motioned Xan, Jaheira, Willow, Buffy and Aquarra forward. He looked pointedly at Xan.

"I understand," Eltan said, "that you fought beside my friend Harold Loggerson more than once."

Xan looked confused. "What?"

"Scar," Eltan said, his voice full of emotion. "You never knew his real name?"

"No," Xan said. "No. Perhaps we were not such good—"

Eltan stopped her with a hand and said, "No, no. You can count on the fingers of one hand the people who know that name. Now, we have much to discuss. This city is blessed with a number of fine temples and cursed with a number more, I suppose. When word of Scar's death came to me I had him brought to the High House of Wonders in hopes that my good friend Thalamond might be able to breathe life back into the old war dog's lungs."

"They couldn't do it, I'm afraid," Eltan said. "His soul had fled, or… well, whatever." The grand duke took a moment to compose himself, then said, "They allowed me to speak with him, though, if you can believe such a thing is possible. He vouched for you, Xan, as only Scar could. And that you vouched for your companions. He told me he'd sent you all snooping around the Seven Suns' pier, that there was some connection between them and some group that is responsible for our troubles with the iron mines."

"Yes, m'lord," Jaheira said as she motioned. "I was sent by the Harpers to look into this. The Iron Throne wants to start a war between your people and mine."

"A war with Amn?" Eltan asked. "To what end?"

Jaheira shook her head and said, "I don't know. That was what Scar sent us to that pier to find out."

"My city is crawling with doppelgangers," Eltan said, "we're being pushed into war with Amn, our resources are being sabotaged, and no one knows why? I know where the Iron Throne meets."

As if in answer a sharp sound of metal hitting the marble floor startled all of them. They looked up at the healer, who smiled sheepishly from the corner.

"You can go, Kendal," Eltan told the man, "I'll be fine."

"I will need to change that dressing, m'lord," the healer said, "tomorrow morning."

"Very well," Eltan agreed with an impatient wave. "Off with you."

The door closed behind the healer, and Willow asked, "Where is this place?"

"Here in the city," Eltan said. "You can come along if you like. I could use a a group who can operate outside the walls of the Gate. If Scar trusted you all, that's good enough for me." He looked at Jaheira and said, "I've met Harpers before, but I won't hold that against you."


	14. Chapter 14: Return to Candlekeep

**Chapter 14: Return to Candlekeep**

"'We will be monks again, for a time,'" Julius read from the dog-eared notebook. "'Return to the meeting place under the pillars of the Wise God.'" He looked at the grand duke, Sergeant Maerik, Buffy, Willow, Aquarra, Xan and Jaheira.

"Candlekeep," Aquarra said quietly.

"Can they get in there?" Eltan asked. "My understanding was that Candlekeep rarely if ever opens her gates. How could a whole cabal of conspirators use Candlekeep as a meeting place?"

"That's a misconception," Aquarra said as she looked at Eltan. "My father was a monk. He raised me behind the walls of Candlekeep, and he set me on the path I've been walking for what seems like a lifetime now. A series of events that started with him and led Buffy and I first to Khalid and Jaheira, then Willlow and finally to Xan. You can get in but you need a lofty entrance fee. A book worth at least five thousand gold. Still most folks couldn't afford such a lofty entrance fee."

"I can sooner go to war with Amn than come up with such a lofty entrance fee," Eltan sighed. He wasn't defeated, he was thinking.

"Seems a handy clue," Maerik piped in, and Eltan looked at him sharply. The sergeant took half a step backward and said, "My apologies, I—"

"Don't apologize, sergeant," Eltan said. "This notebook was a rather important text to leave behind."

"The Iron Throne has done sillier things," Willow offered. "How could they want us to know they've gone to Candlekeep?"

"If it's true what you—" Julius started, then stopped at a sharp look from Maerik.

Eltan held up a hand and said, "Go on, corporal."

Julius smiled weakly and said, "M'lord, if we can't get into Candlekeep, maybe they want us to—want you to know they're out of your reach."

"They're taunting me?" Eltan asked.

Julius shuddered. "I'm just—"

"It's possible," Jaheira said. "We—the Harpers—have thought there's one man behind this whole thing. A dwarf the Iron Throne had made a slave told us this man's name. He's a wealthy merchant from Sembia named Reiltar. I have reason to believe this man Reiltar is the—is a son of Bhaal."

Willow looked at Jaheira with eyes wide. Ever since Jaheira had said that Gorion had tested Buffy and confirmed that her friend was a child of Bhaal. She had been trying to find a way to broach the subject to Buffy.

Buffy looked towards Aquarra and sighed. She was sure now that Aquarra's destiny was to meet this possible brother.

"The son of Bhaal?" Eltan asked, incredulous. "The dead god Bhaal?"

Jaheira nodded, and Julius stood on shaking legs.

"That's madness," Maerik commented. "M'lord, who are these people?"

Eltan looked at Maerik, then at Jaheira, and said, "How could you know this?"

"There are others," Jaheira said. "Other offspring of Bhaal. The Harpers have been watching some, have lost track of others. And we have long believed that Bhaal even sowed some in other realms. No one knows how many have survived."

"And one of them wants to start a war with Amn?" Julius asked, forgetting his place.

"Murder," Jaheira said, "on a grand scale."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Two days from Candlekeep, everyone was taking turns to wash away the grime and sweat of the road. Willow pulled out the book and held it in both hands. Her magic told her that the leather that made the book's binding was human skin.

She opened the cover, and the first page was blank. She turned the first page. There was a skull painted there, surrounded by what might have been either flames or drops of water. The writing was ornate and meaningless to Willow.

Willow turned the next page. The line drawing there made her heart race, and she closed her eyes against the horror of it.

"Will?" Buffy said, Willow jumped and a soft, startled sound escaped her open mouth.

The book bobbled in Willow's hands, but she grabbed at it, closing the cover with a loud crack.

"Are you all right?" Buffy asked.

"Buffy," Willow said as she looked around and saw the others were still bathing. She looked down at the book and decided she needed to tell Buffy what she had learned from Jaheira and Khalid, she needed to stop stalling. "There is something I need to tell you."

Buffy nodded. "What is it?"

"While you and Aquarra were going to take Gorion's body to Candlekeep. I overheard Jaheira and Khalid talking. Jaheira said that Gorion had you tested. For what reason she did not say. But the test confirmed that you too were a child of Bhaal," Willow managed to get out.

"Jaheira," Buffy called out as the Jaheira and the others walked over.

Jaheira sighed as she looked at Buffy and nodded. "It's time you know of your parentage. First let's get one thing straight." She looked at both Aquarra and Buffy. "You both are not who you were born to be. You can make your own way in this or another world, and your father, your brothers and sisters, don't have to turn you off that path."

"Our father?" Aquarra said. "How do you know anything about my father? Or Buffy's father? She wasn't even born in this realm."

"How I know," Jaheira said. "Is what the Harpers have always known. What the priests of Oghma and the paladins of Torm have always known. When I told Eltan that Reiltar is a son of Bhaal, I wasn't sure… I wasn't as sure of that as I am that… that you two are daughters of Bhaal."

"How is that possible?" Buffy asked. "I wasn't even born on your world."

"It has been long believed that during the Time of Troubles that Bhaal seeded his progeny amongst the many races of this realm," Jaheira said. "Some such as Gorion believed he had even sown his seed amongst races of other realms. When the portal that brought you here opened in Candlekeep through the wards. Gorion knew that powerful magic had to have been used. He contacted myself and others he knew and they confirmed the Key had been utilized."

"The Key?" Buffy asked.

"Yes," Jaheira said. "The very one you said resides in your sister. She opened the doorway to your father's realm, unknowingly."

"This just doesn't make sense," Buffy said. "I know who my father is."

"Do you, Buffy?" Willow asked. "Think, when was the last time you saw him?"

"It was in high school. He canceled on me for my seventeenth birthday trip to the Ice Capades and on my eighteenth birthday he was in Spain," Buffy said. "I couldn't even locate him when mom died. I remember mom saying they fell out of love. I wonder now with this information if it was more than just that. It's possible I guess. There is only one person who could answer that. But mom, died. Okay, let's assume for a second here what your saying is true, Jaheira. I'm not a god, and neither is Aquarra despite what you told me back in Naskhel."

"No," Jaheira agreed, "but your father was. Your mothers, I don't know, but your father was the god of murder."

"Is there a way to confirm any of this?" Buffy asked.

"There are two," Jaheira said. "The first I could perform the same test that Gorion had. It would show whether the two of you are related. The other will only work if one of your mother's is no longer among the living."

"I can perform a ritual that can call a spirit," Xan said.

"Perform the spell, Jaheira," Buffy said. "If we see proof then we will go from there."

Jaheira nodded and chanted in the elvish tongue as Buffy and Aquarra glowed blood red.

Aquarra looked at herself and then Buffy as the glow disappeared. "Looks like we won't need that ritual after all."

"Apparently not," Buffy said, "sis." She looked back to Jaheira. "Now you said Reiltar the leader of the Iron Throne was also a child of Bhaal. Which would make him our half-brother."

"Perhaps," Jahiera said. "We—the Harpers—suspected that a son of Bhaal was behind this attempt to bring war between Baldur's Gate and Amn, but we didn't know his name. It could be a sister, even. You have more half-sisters, also."

"Buffy," Willow said. "What about the Slayer?"

"That I do not know," Jaheira said as Buffy looked at her. "You told us an order of monks in your world created the Slayer to fight demons and vampires. It is possible that the Slayer is a separate entity from the Bhaal essence within you. But again I do not know for certain."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Two days later they had finally reached the gates of Candlekeep. Eltan had given them a book for entrance, but had asked before they utilized it to try and see if Aquarra could gain them admittance.

"Good sir," Jaheira said, "you obviously know our companion here, you know her to be a resident of this fair city and," she indicated Aquarra, "the daughter of one of your own. Please understand that we have urgent business here and—"

"Go away," Hull said sternly. "Go away or I'll be forced to—"

"You'll be forced to what," Aquarra said.

"Go away!" the guard squealed and shut the little window in the big, sturdy oaken gate.

"This is ludicrous," Willow said to no one in particular.

Aquarra kicked a stone on the gravel path that ended at the gates of Candlekeep and sighed. "I've never been refused entrance to Candlekeep," Aquarra said. "Never in my life."

"Gorion was alive then," Jaheira said without really thinking. "He was in there to let you in."

"Regardless," Buffy said. "The Iron Throne is gathering in there. We need to get in there."

"Give me a book," Hull's voice sounded suddenly, making Jaheira jump.

"Hull—" Aquarra started to say.

"Ah," Hull interrupted, "a book, or a scroll, or a tablet, or a… something with writing on it. Give me something of use to Candlekeep and you can come in."

Buffy looked to Willow who pulled out a book and handed it to her.

"Hull!" Buffy called, looking at the little door. It took a while for Hull to finally make his presence known.

"A book?" Hull asked, and then grinned widely when his eyes lighted on the tome in Buffy's outstretched hand. "Well, well…"

"Let us in first," Xan said.

Hull laughed, and it wasn't a terribly pleasant sound. "Not on your life, sir. Tell her to slide it through the slot."

Jaheira said, "If there was a window a bit—" but stopped talking when a slot, easily able to accommodate the book, opened up on the door at Buffy's chest height.

"Slide it in there, Miss Buffy," Hull said softly, finally using any of their names.

"You remembered me?" Buffy asked, crossing the short distance to the gate with the book held out in front of her.

"I do, Miss Buffy," Hull said. "Not many falls out of a portal through the wards making the monks wonder how ye did it."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Less than an hour later they were in Tethtoril's private chamber watching him make tea. Aquarra had all but shut down when Tehtoril had asked about Gorion and found out the man was dead.

"Your father," Tethtoril said quickly, obviously uncomfortable with what he was about to say, "left something in my care. He told me that if he ever met an… untimely… if he died before he'd had a chance to…"

The monk held back a sob but couldn't continue.

"What is it, brother?" Aquarra asked, finally looking up at Tethtoril.

"A letter," the monk said, then cleared his throat. "A letter and a pass stone—a stone that will give you free run of Candlekeep."

"A letter?" Aquarra asked remembering the scrap of parchment that Buffy had found on Gorion's body. "I saw it," he said. "Gorion had it with him when he died."

"Impossible," Tethtoril said as he pulled out a letter and handed it to Aquarra. "I have the letter right here."

After Tethtoril left with Xan to give them some privacy Aquarra read the letter aloud to Buffy, Willow and Jaheira.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

 _Hello My Daughter,_

 _If you are reading this it means I have met an untimely death. I would tell you not to grieve for me, but I feel much better thinking that you might. If you can, it will mean I have done the best any father could hope to do._

 _There are things I must tell you in this letter that I should have told you before, but if my death came too soon and I have not been given the chance, you must know these things, and know them from me. I know you better than anyone on this world. You must believe what I have written here with the knowledge that, though there have been things I have not told you, I would never lie to you—not about this._

 _As you have known all your life, I am not your true father, but you have never known your sire's name. It is a name spoken only in fearful whispers, for so great was the terror of it that even though its power has fled the multiverse, it has meaning still. You are the daughter of Bhaal._

 _Your father is the entity known as Bhaal, Lord of Murder. A thing of evil, so vile it's nearly impossible to believe the multiverse itself could stand its hateful presence._

 _You do not remember the Time of Troubles, when the gods walked Faerun. Like other great powers, Bhaal was forced into a mortal shell. As is possible, I have read, with divine beings, Bhaal was somehow forewarned of the death that awaited him during this time. He sought out women then, of every race, and forced himself upon them or seduced them._

 _Your mother was one of these women… a mortal ravaged by murder incarnate. Your mother died in childbirth. I had been her friend and knew the paladin who brought you to me. I felt obliged, at first, to raise you as my own. As the years went by and I saw in you—every day—the promise of a life beyond some divine destiny, I came to love you as only a father can love his daughter. I have but one hope now, and that is that you will always think of me as your father._

 _The blood of the gods runs through your veins. If you make use of our extensive library you will find that our founder, Alaundo, has many prophecies concerning the coming of the spawn of Bhaal. Perhaps these prophecies will help you find your way._

 _There are many who will want to use you for their own purposes. You had many half-brothers, and nearly as many half-sisters. Over the years an order of the paladins of Torm—among which I have some friends—and the Harpers, and some other individuals—I'm not even sure who—have kept track of you, and as many of your half siblings as possible. We've lost touch with some, we know some are dead, and we've rediscovered one. This one may be your half-brother, and you may want to believe that he is family, that he can be a brother to you, but I beg you, do not. He means you only ill, and he was not raised in the calm, studious atmosphere of Candlekeep, but by a series of faceless cultists still clinging to the hopeless servitude of a dead god._

 _This one calls himself Sarevok._

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Jaheira gasped. Her eyes were red, brimming with tears, and wide with confusion. "Not Reiltar?" she whispered hoarsely.

"Sarevok," Aquarra said. "Do you know that name?"

"No," Jaheira said. "We only assumed that this Reiltar based on evidence presented was your half-brother."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

 _This one is the worst danger. He has studied here at Candlekeep and thus knows a great deal about your history and who you are. I have left you a token that will give you access to the inner libraries. You can find the secret entrance in one of the reading rooms on the ground floor. Do not tell any of the monks about your pass stone as they will take it from you. The inner libraries contain a secret route that leads out of Candlekeep. Use this only in the most pressing situations._

 _Your loving father, Gorion._

 _P.S. This Note is for Buffy Summers should she be with you, Aquarra. I apologize now for not telling you of the test I had performed on you or my suspicions that Bhaal had gone to other realms and had other children. But I knew it was possible. There is only one artifact to my knowledge that could ever bypass the wards of Candlekeep. The Key._

 _You told me the Key had been pressed into human form, created from your own blood, Buffy, to be your sister. If I had met Dawn, I would have performed the test and been one hundred percent positive, but I believe that she too is a daughter of Bhaal. In fact she may be the purest child of Bhaal there is because she does not have any blood but your own coursing through her veins._

 _Regardless if Dawn is also a child of Bhaal, we don't know how Bhaal even got to your realm, not for sure. There are spells of course that could take him, and it is likely he utilized one of them. Once there he either seduced or forced himself on your mother. I am sorry I did not tell you of this beforehand. In the inner libraries maybe your way home. Search for it. All I ask is that if you find it. You take Aquarra, your half-sister, with you. Once in your world she will be safe._

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Just then the door burst open and men came in. Buffy reacted, like she always did, and jumped to her feet.

The first blow was a solid one that Buffy blocked. She stood and used her Slayer strength to help propel the staff she'd been struck with up and into the low ceiling. It snapped in half as she grabbed the broken end of the staff as it began to fall and returned the attack without even looking at the target.

Jaheira, Aquarra and Willow were on their feet too, but they had no weapons. They had left them, just as Buffy had in their rooms.

The man Buffy hit fell heavily on the floor in front of her, and she used the broken staff like a club to parry one swipe, then another, then another, from two guards coming at her with stout oaken cudgels.

"Submit!" a commanding voice bellowed from somewhere just outside the narrow door as the guards continued to spill into the room. "Submit to the justice of Candlekeep, and it will all go that much—"

Buffy took another guard down with a fast, short jab to the temple with the rounded end of the staff.

"—easier for all of you!"

Buffy didn't submit, neither did the others as they continued to defend themselves against the onslaught.

"Sleep!" the voice from the corridor shouted, and slowly they slipped unconscious.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Once again they were caged like animals. They were together this time, along with Xan.

"Is this yours?" Tethtoril said as he held up a bracelet.

If Jaheira allowed herself time to think, she might not have said what she said next. "Yes, where did you find it?" It was a bracelet she had had lost during the fighting at the Cloak Wood mines.

"Pilten," Tethtoril said, as a guard stepped forward. "Take these and… all of this… and secure it."

Pilten nodded once in acknowledgment then took the bundle that included their weapons, the letter from Gorion, the pass stone—Tethtoril made a point of showing Aquarra that he'd put it in the leather bag—and the incriminating evidence and walked away.

"Go with her," Tethtoril said to the others, "all of you."

The other guards were reluctant to leave the old monk.

"I will be quite all right," he said, lifting his chin in an expression of simple authority. The other guards shuffled off, and there was the sound of many doors closing. "I will do what I can, but you've left me little to work with."

"Send word to Baldur's Gate, perhaps," Willow said, "to Duke Eltan?"

Tethtoril nodded, though there was very little hope showing in the old monk's face.


	15. Chapter 15: Return to Baldur's Gate

**Author's Note:** Just one more chapter to go and part 1 of this story will be complete. Originally I had thought of making this one long story going from the original Baldur's Gate through Shadows of Amn and ending in Throne of Bhaal. Instead I decided to split the story and delving into each game solo. Of course each story will pick up where the other left off.

* * *

 **Chapter 15: Return to Baldur's Gate**

"Aquarra," Korak said. "Aquarra, I help you."

The reeking undead thing held up a heavy iron ring hung with a dozen or more big keys. Clinging to the ring was a severed hand already turning gray, its knuckles still white in its death grip.

"He's been following us," Willow said.

"You killed the guard?" Aquarra asked the ghoul directly.

Korak smiled, held up the ring again, and said, "I help you. I want to help you."

"Go away," Aquarra said, even as the ghoul started trying keys in the big lock.

"I'm not convinced this is a good idea either," Xan said, "but I'm not sure we have much choice. Murderers are executed here like everywhere else, aren't they?"

There was a loud clank and a squeak. They looked over to see Korak swing the gate open.

The ghoul smiled a black-toothed smile and said, "Come."

"If you step one foot in here, Korak," Aquarra said, "I will kill you with my bare hands."

"Aquarra," Willow said, ignoring the ghoul, "if they could get to Scar—with doppelgangers—if they could get into the ducal palace in Baldur's Gate… they could get in here."

"Tethtoril will help us," Aquarra protested. "I've known him all my life. He's a good man, and he won't hang any of us."

"If he isn't already dead," Xan said sternly.

Korak hovered in the open doorway and said, "Coming now?"

"That was Tethtoril who locked us in here last night," Aquarra assured them. "If it was a doppelganger why wouldn't he just kill us?"

"Would Tethtoril?" Jaheira asked. "If that was a doppelganger it would have to behave the way Tethtoril would behave. It could be up there right now, gathering more false evidence against us—evidence of crimes committed by doppelgangers who look just like us—evidence that it'll use to convict us and execute us. To everyone else it'll all seem perfectly rational, perfectly just. We'll be blamed for everything… the Iron Throne, Reiltar or Sarevok, or whoever is behind this will have won."

"I have to agree with Jaheira, Xan and Willow," Buffy said. "The only people we can trust are those of us here in this cell now."

Aquarra nodded as they left. Korak led them to where their possessions had been taken and they quickly put back on their armor and strapped their weapons on.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Under the monastery, for what seemed like endless layer upon endless layer, was a series of catacombs and sewers that was like an infinite labyrinth following Korak.

"Eventually this should lead out to the sea," Aquarra said.

"No time to stop." Korak sounded nervous. "No time at all!"

Zombies fell on them from all sides at once, they destroyed Korak first and then turned on the group.

"We got to get out of here," Buffy said as they ran.

They turned a corner in the dark, damp, musty, narrow corridor, and their way was blocked by a rusted iron gate.

"Break it open," Jaheira suggested weakly.

Buffy grabbed and pulled hard on the gate and it gave a little, sending a hundred different echoes cascading through the passageway.

The first zombie rounded the corner.

Aquarra and Xan drew their swords and brought them around close to their bodies to avoid cutting anyone other than their intended victims, the zombies. Buffy continued to work at the gate as it slowly began to give. And then finally it did.

"Come on," Buffy said as Aquarra pulled out the pass stone and turned, moving past Buffy, even as another zombie appeared around the corner.

"Follow me!" Aquarra said and didn't look back. She held the stone in her left hand and let it pass an inch or two from the wall.

"Do you know…" Jaheira panted, "… where we're… going?"

Aquarra answered, "No, but I know Candlekeep. The whole thing is full of secret doors. It's practically made of secret doors. I've never been down here, but I see no reason why—"

She stopped at the sound of grinding stone. A doorway slid open in the stone wall to their left and they stepped through into the soft, damp breeze that carried on it the scent of the sea.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

It wasn't even a whole shadow that caught Buffy's eye but the edge of a shadow. It was the third time she'd caught a glimpse of it since they'd returned to Baldur's Gate, sneaking into the city at night, unsure of their status in that city or any other on the Sword Coast. They were considered murderers in Candlekeep. But somehow they still managed to be followed.

"You're sure?" Aquarra said softly.

Buffy nodded and said, "Just keep walking. We need to see Eltan."

"He might be the one following us," Xan said, "or having us followed."

"It's possible," Willow said. "But if Buffy is jumpy it's usually for a very good reason."

"Let's find out," Buffy said as she indicated a lightless alley.

They headed in to the alley and true to form the shadow followed.

It took them an hour or more to reach the ducal palace, staying in the shadowy alleys the whole way.

They heard footsteps once, saw another shadow, then another, before they reached their destination.

They approached the guards at the gates of the ducal palace.

"Halt," one of them called. "Who goes there?"

Buffy held her hands out next to her and walked up the little incline to the gate slowly. "We seek an audience with Grand Duke Eltan," she said simply.

One of the guards stepped forward. "And who are you?" he asked.

"Grand Duke Eltan knows us," Willow said. "He sent us on a mission, and we need to report back."

"The grand duke is dying," the guard said. "You can make your report to the captain of the watch in the morning."

One of the other guards moved timidly out of the shadows. "Miss Buffy?" the approaching guard asked, "Miss Willow, Miss Aquarra, Miss Jaheira, Mister Xan? Is that you?"

The first guard tensed visibly and shifted the weight of his halberd.

"Julius?" Aquarra said as the second guard's face became visible.

"Torm save us," the first guard exclaimed, "it's the Shadow Thieves!"

"No—" Aquarra started to say, but Julius rushed at her with his halberd out in front of him.

The first guard came at Buffy, and she stepped lightly to one side and grabbed the pole of the halberd in a tight grip. The guard let go of the polearm and drew a sword quickly. She tossed the polearm to Willow as she pulled her own sword from her scabbard.

Aquarra was ready for Julius's clumsy charge and stepped past the head his polearm too. She punched Julius square in the nose, his own momentum compounding the blow. There was a sharp, snapping sound and a warm wetness over her fist, and Julius went down.

Buffy dodged a slice from a guard's sword. Then she spun her own sword and faked a jab at the guard's head. The guard dodged the attack, but put his head in line for a sideswipe that knocked him down—and out—with a solid clunk. "Move!" she shouted at the others as they darted toward the safety of the dark alleys.

They passed rats, garbage in piles, sleeping houses, and shops closed for the night. They passed through an alley between two expensive looking townhouses. There was a beggar asleep in the alley who looked like nothing more than a pile of rags, snoring softly.

Just then the face of the person who'd been following them since they'd returned to Baldur's Gate came around a corner they had just rounded slowly, eyes like slits in the darkness. Dawn who had dropped back spun around and grabbed for the stranger.

"I am not your enemy."

It was a woman, short and thin of frame, dressed in a close-fitting black garment.

"Who are you?" Buffy asked as she stepped up next to her sister.

"My name is Tamoko," the woman said from the shadows.

"Why are you following us?" Willow asked.

"I know you are not Shadow Thieves," Tamoko said quietly. "I know you are not attempting to start this war, but avoid it."

"What war?" Aquarra asked. "War with Amn?"

"Grand Duke Eltan is dying," Tamoko said. "The healer is not what he seems."

With that Tamoko stepped back into the shadows.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

If they hadn't spent as much time in the company of the festering ghoul Korak, They wouldn't have been able to stand being in the alley as long as it took the guards to finish searching the place.

"What's keeping them?" Aquarra asked in a voice dripping venom and impatience.

"Who knows," Buffy said.

"Well, I guess the longer they're in there, the more thorough a search they give the place, the less likely they'll be to think they missed us and come back again," Aquarra said. "Besides, the reek is the only thing keeping me awake right now."

They didn't have much longer to wait, and when the guards came out it was hard to miss them. They were a noisy, boisterous lot who seemed to have spent more time in the Blushing Mermaid drinking than searching. They forced themselves to be patient until the guards' voices faded down the maze of crooked streets.

They slipped into a side door and got only a passing, disinterested glance from a halfling cook who was standing on a little wooden stool, stirring a huge black caldron full of that vile fish stew. They made their way out of the kitchens and into the tavern proper. They slipped into the common room and over to a table far away from a loud group of patrons.

When she passed the bar a young man in loose-fitting ring mail looked up at Buffy with bleary eyes. "Julius," she said, stopping abruptly enough to draw the momentary attention of a couple of the sailors. She looked back at them, and they turned away from her steely gaze. She reached out and took the young guardsman by the shoulder.

"'Ey," Julius slurred weakly. He reeked of stale beer and sweat.

Buffy dragged Julius to the table where Xan, Willow and Aquarra were staring at them both expectantly.

Julius sat down heavily on one of the little stools, and his head bobbed loosely on his neck. "Finish me off, why don't you?" he murmured.

"Julius," Willow said, "we need some time. You're not going to turn us in, are you?"

Julius sat swaying gently for a few moments. "To the Abyss with 'em all, my friend. They busted me, d'you believe that? They busted me to footman," he said.

"Julius," Aquarra said, having to just hope he could understand her. "The guard at the palace told us Eltan is dying. What's been going on here?"

"Eltan Schmeltan…" Julius murmured. "He can kiss my—"

"Julius," Buffy warned.

"Yeah … yeah … Eltan," Julius said around sudden, violent hiccups. "He's taken … he's taken … he's taken …"

"Ill?" Xan provided.

"Yes," Julius said, scratching at his hair like a dog. "That too." He then passed out and Aquarra shook the young guardsman awake. "They busted me to footman, so now I gotta wear this damned ring mail. I hate ring mail. It—"

The door to the street burst open, and an enormously fat woman surged into the tavern, panting and sweating.

"Whoa," Julius said and nearly fell off his chair.

The woman crossed to the bartender and told him something important.

"Hey up!" the bartender shouted, sliding to the center of the long bar. "Hey up! Dawn breaks over a sad city for Grand Duke Eltan is dead!"

Buffy looked at Willow, Xan, Aquarra and Jaheira and let out a sigh. Their hope of being pardoned had just been shot down.

"Angelo," Julius murmured. "I have to take orders from Angelo."

"Angelo?" Xan asked, "The half-elf?"

Julius nodded loosely and said, "Aye. He's taken over the Flaming Fist. Now there'll be nobody to stop the ducal election from going to whatsisname."

"Who?" Jaheira asked.

"Sarevok," Julius said sluggishly. "It'll be Grand Duke Sarevok."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

They were hesitant to follow Julius's stammered, mumbled directions, but had little choice. As another day dawned over Baldur's Gate, they stole cloaks off a wash line and went through the waking streets with hoods drawn over their faces. They followed Julius's directions, to the back of the ducal palace, keeping to the still shadowy alley facing the rear gate from which Julius claimed the ducal healer would eventually emerge.

The door opened, and they watched Kendal stride quickly, casually, out into the street. The party glanced at each other and followed the healer into the maze of slowly waking streets. Kendal took what could only have been a purposefully meandering path through the streets. Though it wasn't difficult to follow him, everyone was becoming more and more wary of being caught out in the open. It was with some relief that they saw Kendal ditch into a dark, thin alleyway. They followed him into the shadows and stopped when they saw him change.

By the time Kendal reached the end of the alley—less than a dozen yards at most—he'd blurred around the edges and faded into a new form altogether. What came out the other end of the alley was a young woman, carrying not a bag of medicines, potions, and such but a basket of fresh cut flowers.

The doppelganger continued on its way—actually paused twice to sell flowers to passersby—then slipped into another alley without ever looking behind it. The party circled around quickly and were at the other end of the alley before the doppelganger emerged, this time in the form of a burly laborer in mud-stained coveralls.

Each of the party hid behind various food carts and watched the doppelganger disappear down another side street. They moved quickly along the next block, hoping to cut the doppelganger off, but when they cut through an alley, back to the street they'd seen the creature turn down, there was no sign of the laborer. The street was all but empty. The sun had barely peeked over the city wall.

"Damn them all," Xan whispered.

"I hate those damned doppelgangers," Jaheira said.

"As do I," replied a voice from behind them.

They turned and saw what could only be the slight eastern woman from the night before. She was dressed in shimmering black silk.

"You're a doppelganger," Willow said.

Tamoko smiled sadly. "I understand that that possibility would exist," she said, "but I am not."

"Who are you?" Xan asked, his brow furrowed.

Tamoko nodded in the direction of an alley and stepped in, this time making no attempt to hide herself. The party reluctantly followed. Jaheira drew a silver dagger, and this elicited a tiny, knowing smile from Tamoko.

"I can take you to the Iron Throne," Tamoko said simply.

Jaheira laughed in response and said, "Can you really? And will they wait to kill us there or pounce on us in the street?"

"They will not expect anyone to be coming in from this entrance. You will be able to kill them all and—"

"Yeah right," Buffy said. "We have no reason to trust you …"

"Or anyone in this pit of shapeshifters," Xan added.

"I am your brother's lover," Tamoko said, locking her eyes onto Aquarra's.

Aquarra felt the truth radiate from them. She was speaking so simply, so plainly, and never wavering. She had no real reason to, but she believed the woman. "Sarevok?" she asked, the name almost tripping on her tongue.

Tamoko nodded once. "I can help you, but you must not kill him."

"This is madness," Jaheira scoffed. "This lover of yours is going to start a war. Thousands of people are going to die. He's already killed two of the most powerful men in Baldur's Gate, and others…" She stepped forward and bent the elbow of her sword arm just slightly.

Tamoko fixed her gaze on the tip of Jaheira's blade.

"No one believes us," Willow said then, just letting the words pour out. "They've accused us of murder, of being Shadow Thieves, of being Amnian spies, and of who knows what else. They've killed some of our friends, all of our contacts."

"We're alone against this man, my brother …" Buffy added.

"Your …" Tamoko said.

"You didn't know that I also am a child of Bhaal?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"No, no I did not. I do not even think he knows," Tamoko replied.

"Which is possible," Jaheira said. "Till Gorion's tests, even I had not known. We had thought you were simply a traveler from somewhere else, Buffy."

"Oh he very likely knows," Willow said. "Remember in the mines the dwarf said that the man that answered to Rieltar came and took Dawn from the Cloak Wood mines."

"Which means he very likely knows I am as well," Buffy said. "Regardless though, he will be the next grand duke, by nightfall. There might be people left who can help us, but they will need proof. They will need written proof."

"If the Iron Throne is revealed," Tamoko said, "Sarevok will have to flee the city. I will go with him. We will…"

"Buffy, Aquarra…" Jaheira said.

"The threat of war will be at an end," Tamoko said.

"And you will reform this brother of ours?" Buffy asked. "You'll turn him away from… from our father's…"

"I will," Tamoko said flatly.

"Buffy, Aquarra," Jaheira said, "he's not you or Dawn."

Buffy and Aquarra looked at Jaheira and smiled, "No," they agreed, he isn't."

"I cannot speak for the others," Buffy said to Tamoko, "I've sworn to protect humanoid life. I will not kill Sarevok,"

"I'll follow Buffy's lead," Willow agreed.

"So will I," Aquarra echoed.

"Nor will I," Jaheira and Xan said.

The assassin bowed deeply, forming nearly a ninety-degree angle at her waist. She stood and said, "You will have your evidence."


	16. Chapter 16: Sarevok

**Author's Note:** Last chapter I had said I was going to break this series into 3 stories. I changed my mind yet again. I am going to continue posting to his one. The next chapter will be Chapter 1 of the next story. And so as to try and avoid confusion each arc will have a title above Chapter 1 like such.

 _ **The Gift of Baldur's Gate: Bhaalspawn? Who me?**_

 **Chapter 1: Candlekeep**

Chapter 1 of the next arc doesn't have a title yet but it will likely be

 _ **The Gift of Baldur's Gate 2: Looking for Dawn  
**_

 **Chapter 1: Torture  
**

Then Chapter 2, 3, 4, etc will have the standard chapter titles.

* * *

 **Chapter 16: Sarevok**

"That is all that we will find here," Tamoko said when they had dispatched the last of the doppelgangers. "The rest are elsewhere in the city."

"Where?" Aquarra said, wiping doppelganger blood from her own blade.

"You wanted proof," Tamoko said.

"We don't want to leave any more of these things alive in the city," Buffy replied, waiting for the location of the other doppelgangers.

Tamoko stood firm and said, "There will always be doppelgangers in this city," Tamoko obviously took no joy in her opinion. "There will always be doppelgangers in every city. It is how they live."

"She's right," Xan said. "We came here for evidence."

Tamoko gestured to a corner of the cellar. This particular cell of doppelgangers—all in the employ of Sarevok and the Iron Throne—made their home in the cellar of an abandoned manor house on Windspell Street. The cellar was dark, smelled bad, and was crowded with old crates and stacks of rotten firewood. There were six cots and four dead doppelgangers.

Buffy looked in the corner Tamoko indicated and saw a stout wooden chest. She dragged the chest into the feeble light of the doppelgangers' oil lamp.

Tamoko knelt next to one of the dead creatures and stuck her finger into the doppelganger's bloody mouth. She obviously didn't find what she was looking for, so she knelt next to another one.

"What are you doing?" Willow asked her.

Tamoko fished about in the doppelganger's mouth for a moment and produced a wet, slimy iron key.

Willow shook her head in amazement, and Tamoko flashed an almost imperceptible smile.

The assassin tossed the key to Buffy, who used it to open the chest.

"What is it?" Aquarra asked Buffy. "What's in there?"

"Paper," Buffy replied as she looked over a scroll. "Evidence." She turned and looked at the others and smiled, but her smile quickly faded as she looked past her, then turned her head to scan the room.

Tamoko was gone.

Buffy carried the chest a long way through the streets of Baldur's Gate. They had decided their course of action in the cellar.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Oh no," Julius breathed. "Get away from me!"

The young footman waved his halberd weakly at Buffy, Aquarra, Jaheira, Xan and Willow. The bruises under his eyes were a livid purple, but he'd taken the cloth out of his nose. His eyes were bright red, and his face was pale. He didn't look well, and now he was scared on top of it all.

"Why," he asked the heavens, "on my watch?"

"Julius," Aquarra said as Buffy put the chest down on the gravel path leading to the gates of the ducal palace, "we've come to turn ourselves in."

Buffy slid her sheathed blade out of the loop on her belt and tossed it casually to the ground in front of Julius's feet. Attracted to the odd confrontation, the other guards started to gather around.

"You're going to kill me this time, aren't you?" Julius asked, his voice as serious as it was weak.

Aquarra removed her sword from her back and tossed it to land on top of Buffy's weapon on the ground in front of Julius. Willow, Jaheira and Xan all followed suit. The young footman jumped back.

One of the other guards asked, "You know these people?"

Julius ignored his comrade and said to Buffy, "You might as well kill me. They can't bust me any further down…" he turned his gaze to the group and finished, "… except maybe the dungeon."

One by one Aquarra, Willow, Buffy, Jaheira and Xan put their hands on top of their heads, smiled, and fell to their knees in surrender.

"Why," Julius asked the other guards, "is it always my watch?"

Julius, with a parade of other guards to back him up, led Aquarra, Buffy, Jaheira, Xan and Willow through the wide, high-ceilinged corridors of the ducal palace. He stopped at a set of tall double doors on either side of which stood two nervous halberdiers.

Julius nodded at them and said, "Duke Angelo is expecting us."

They pulled open the doors, and Willow gasped at the sight of the chamber within. It was an enormous room filled with ornate furnishings and artifacts that simply oozed wealth. It was like some exotic museum.

There were six people already there, but only one man—a half-elf actually—stood when Julius led the group in.

Two guards put the heavy chest down a few paces into the room. The group followed Julius and the other guards' lead and bowed to the duke.

"These are the…" Julius said, "… them, m'lord."

Angelo smiled at Julius and said, "Footman…"

"Julius, m'lord."

"Julius," Angelo said, nodding, "you'll make corporal for this."

Julius looked relieved, but didn't smile. "Th-tha-thank you, m'lord," he stammered.

"Aquarra Adrian," Angelo said, "I have heard a great deal about you."

"Duke Angelo," Aquarra said with a nod.

While the two guards who'd brought in the chest opened it, Buffy studied the other occupants of the room. There were two women, both tall and dark and impeccably dressed, dripping with gold and dazzling gems. Two of the men were middle-aged bureaucrats. The third man was obviously a mercenary.

"I am told you have brought with you your reason for turning yourselves in," Angelo said, his voice alive with curiosity. "I have it on good authority"—and he glanced at Buffy—"that all five of you are members of the Shadow Thieves, and spies of Amn here to incite war through sabotage and—"

"We're none of those things," Buffy said, "and the contents of this chest will prove that."

The mercenary stood and approached slowly.

"A chest full of scrolls?" Angelo asked.

"Yes, m'lord," Aquarra answered. "M'lord, on these scrolls you will find plans for mines both familiar and unfamiliar to you. You will find an alchemical recipe for a potion designed to ruin iron ore. You will find—"

"Evidence of a Faerun-spanning conspiracy," Duke Angelo finished for her, "that only you five Amnian agents are aware of, is that it? Did I get that right?"

"We have surrendered ourselves," Xan said. "We are at your mercy for as long as it takes you to study the contents of this chest."

"There is a man in Baldur's Gate who is working for an organization called the Iron Throne," Willow said. "The Iron Throne is responsible for the troubles with the iron supply, not Amn. These men, if men they are, use doppelgangers to kill the very best of us—Captain Scar and Grand Duke Eltan among them."

Angelo seemed ready with another quip. "And this man in Baldur's Gate?" he asked.

"This man is named Sarevok," Buffy answered.

Then things started happening too quickly for all but five of the people in the room to really follow.

Angelo looked sharply over his shoulder at the big mercenary, whose eyes did flash with a distinct yellow light. Duke Angelo said, "Sarevok?" at the same time that the mercenary's hand flashed forward, and there was a lightning bolt of energy, thin and blue-white. It cracked in the air of the room, and Buffy twitched to the side faster than anyone thought capable. Well anyone who hadn't known that Buffy was the Slayer. The electricity flashed past her. The eyes of the fancy women and the stuffed men bulged, and one of them spilled his drink.

There was a scream behind Buffy, followed quickly by a thud and Angelo's voice asking, "Sarevok?" again.

Buffy reached for her sword, but of course it wasn't there. The mercenary twisted his fingers and muttered something Buffy couldn't understand, and she realized two things at the same instant: This man was Sarevok, and he was casting a spell. "Willow!" she yelled as she leapt forward and brushed Sarevok's hands aside as she went for his neck.

The spell spoiled, Sarevok bellowed in rage and brought his hands up to break Buffy's stranglehold. Buffy answered that with a head-butt that bounced the back of Sarevok's skull against the wall. Neither of them had remembered Sarevok falling backward, with Buffy on top of him.

"Where is my sister?" Buffy asked. "Where is Dawn?" She then remembered her promise to Tamoko, and her fingers relaxed just enough that Sarevok managed to push her away and to the side, almost breaking her neck in the process. As she rolled onto her back, Buffy could see two guards—one of them Julius—rushing to put out a fire. The fire was burning Jaheira's chest.

"Jaheira!" Buffy screamed, and she spun at the movement next to her, though at that instant she cared about nothing more than Jaheira who lay sprawled and burning on the floor. Sarevok stood and bounded toward the big glass window. She let him go.

Angelo shouted, "Sarevok!"

Buffy slid across the polished floor to Jaheira's side as Willow and Aquarra did the same. There was an enormous crash as Sarevok leapt through the window. Xan and Duke Angelo slid to the floor next to them.

Buffy reached out to grab the duke. "Get a doctor!" she yelled.

"A priest," Aquarra said and Angelo nodded rushing off. But it was too late, Jaheira was dead.

At that moment Buffy made Jaheira a promise that she would be avenged.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy stabbed the doppelganger so hard her hand followed her sword through the creature's body. She could feel the thing transform while her arm was still inside it.

Thanks to Sarevok's own, nearly compulsive, record-keeping they'd been able to find the entrance to the subterranean labyrinth of old sewers and catacombs the doppelgangers had been using to infiltrate nearly every corner of the city of Baldur's Gate. All the tunnels led in one direction. As Buffy tossed aside the dead doppelganger, she peered into the murky darkness and somehow knew they were close, but didn't know exactly what they were close to. Was it Sarevok, Dawn or something else entirely?

"This way!" Buffy said as she led the others and a small group of soldiers that Angelo had given her . "Maerik."

The stocky sergeant pressed through his comrades, nodding expectantly.

"Take your men and Ferran's," Buffy ordered, "back to the last side passage. Err to your left."

Maerik said, "Yes, ma'am," and was off faster than even Buffy expected. These men were fighting for their homes now.

"Temil," Buffy said to a short, thin, gray-haired woman in flowing satin robes, "you and your men go left up there and try to circle around. Aquarra, Willow, Xan and I are taking Julius's men with us."

The mage smiled and swept her robe around in a flourish. Her men followed her warily, obviously not used to taking orders from a sorceress, but knowing their duty.

Buffy, Aquarra, Xan and Willow headed off down the passage, stepping lightly on their toes, ready for anything.

When Tamoko stepped out in front of them they slid to a halt, and they realized who she was before they killed her.

"Tamoko," Aquarra said as she drew her blade, "where is—"

They noticed a trickle of blood was running down the right side of Tamoko's face from under her black hood. She was breathing heavily, and they saw her fighting not to stagger as she advanced on her, one pained step at a time.

"Tamoko…" Buffy said, and she shook her head. She saw a tear trace a line down Tamoko's left cheek.

"I was… orokashii," she said, "I was disloyal… I was disloyal."

Buffy put her sword up, ready to defend, but not to kill. "He killed Jaheira." she told Tamoko.

"I know," Tamoko whispered. "Of course he did."

"He needs you," Willow told her, "but he doesn't deserve you."

"It is I who does not deserve him," she said and attacked.

Buffy blocked her assault. Tamoko stumbled at the end of it, throwing herself off balance in what must have been the first time in years, maybe ever. "I won't kill you," she told her.

"I have to kill you," she replied and attacked again, this time taking a nick out of Buffy's side. She stepped back quickly, and her knees gave out all at once. Her chin hit the flagstone floor, and they all heard her teeth clack together. She put her arm out to stop her fall a good second after she'd already hit the floor.

"You're dying aren't you," Xan asked Tamoko as she lay there on the floor trying to move, then just trying to breathe. "And he is the cause, for helping us?"

From the floor, she said, "I release you… from your vow. I cannot… he must… shiizumaru… he must die. Your sister is …"

"Tamoko," Buffy said, but by the time she finished saying her name, Tamoko was dead.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

It wasn't absolutely necessary, for the completion of the ritual, for the other sixteen priests in the inner sanctum of the High House of Wonders to be chanting. It was an aid in concentration for High Artificer Thalamond Albaier, though, and a chance for the lesser priests to see the greatest of all Gond's miracles.

The fact that Jaheira lay sprawled and lifeless across the marble altar as the high artificer performed the ceremony at Angelo's request, so he was doing everything in his substantial power to see that it happened. The candles that burned in the room were blessed of Gond, the air was scented with incense grown in the greenhouses of Wonderhome itself.

A sharp, jagged breath was drawn in, followed by a hollow wail that made every hair in the chamber stand on end.

"Buffy!" Jaheira screamed as her eyes snapped open.

"Jaheira," Angelo said as he moved to beside the young woman. "She, Aquarra, Xan and Willow have gone to face Sarevok."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy, Aquarra, Xan and Willow had no idea how far underground they were. They and the soldiers Angelo had given them followed the passageway, leaving Tamoko's body behind. The passageway ended in a small, low-ceilinged chamber with one other exit. A wide archway opened to a much larger chamber, and the unmistakable orange glow of torchlight lit the space beyond.

Buffy took a deep breath. Through that archway, she knew, they would find Sarevok, a man they'd seen only once before, and only for the length of time it took him to kill Jaheira.

They stepped through the archway, and a sizzle of cold electricity passed through their bodies at the sight of the chamber beyond.

The space was enormous, and though none of them were an engineer or miner, they couldn't imagine what was keeping the ceiling—and what must have been two hundred feet or more of earth and bedrock above it—from falling in. The rows of stone pillars that lined each of the long sides of the rectangular chamber looked more ornamental than practical. Carved into the stone of the pillars and the walls alike were scenes of unimaginable horror. Screaming faces of men, women, children, and beasts leered out at them, their faces frozen in a moment of pure agony—the moment of traumatic death. Only an artist who had visited the deepest pits of the Abyss could have carved such faces.

The far end of the room was dominated by a stepped dais, several yards on a side, that rose perhaps twenty feet off the flagstone floor. An altar fit for sacrifices and carved with the same tormented faces dominated the top of the dais. Torches set into wall sconces fashioned from hideous wrought-iron gargoyles lit the chamber with an unsteady illumination. Candles dripped blood-red wax onto the floor of the dais, candles set in golden candelabra twisted into the forms of dying women.

Sarevok was waiting for them. He stood behind the hideous altar, and a semicircle of figures stood around him, men in black robes, their hands poised in front of them in odd gestures that might have been some attitude of prayer.

Sarevok's armor reflected every nuance of Bhaal's evil. Fashioned from what must have been iron—iron as black as midnight—the plates covered every inch of the man. Blades whose razor edges gleamed in the dancing light rose from exaggerated randers like miniature wings and flared from his vambraces like the raking claws of some clockwork raptor.

Set into the center of this cruel suit was a sigil Willow recognized from the cover of the cursed book: a skull ringed by drops of blood. Sarevok looked like some huge, black iron beetle.

"Aquarra Adrian," Sarevok said, his voice rolling through the chamber, "and Buffy Summers."

They expected he knew Buffy's name from Dawn. Either that or he had divined it some other way. Buffy looked around quickly searching for Dawn but not finding her.

Sarevok laughed and the sound set the robed figures off, and they rushed headlong at the mercenaries coming timidly into the room behind the four of them.

"To arms!" Julias screamed, and a wild, incoherent battle cry rose up from the throats of the mercenaries.

The black-robed cultists chanted and murmured. Waves of darkness, blue glowing missiles, and bursts of flame scattered the first rank of Flaming Fists.

The men quickly regrouped, and a few of the cultists went down to ordinary steel. Then it was just all-out havoc. Sarevok still stood in place and none of the cultists would come within ten feet of Buffy, Aquarra, Willow and Xan. They brought their swords up, while Willow prepared a spell.

Sarevok smiled a wolf's grin, and he moved toward them.

Buffy looked to Willow, Xan and Aquarra who nodded and backed off while she herself advanced.

Xan turned and joined the foot soldiers in their battle while Aquarra, and Willow waited for any sign that Buffy needed assistance.

Sarevok came down the steps of the dais two at a time and brought a huge, black, two-handed sword up and over his head as Buffy leaped over a fallen cultist.

The sound their swords made when they smashed together made Buffy's ears ring.

"This is between you and me," Buffy said. "You took my baby sister. You killed someone I love dearly. Where I am from I had sworn to protect human life from the forces of darkness. Then after I came here I made the same vow to protect all humanoid life, elven and human alike. I intend to break that vow today; you will die for taking Dawn and killing Jaheira."

There was a momentary flash of what might have been respect in Sarevok's eyes when Buffy's sword took the full force of his strike. The sound of steel on steel echoed through the giant room. Men screamed, women screamed, dozens died. There was a dull, rumbling sound, searing heat, and red-orange light—a fireball going off close to Buffy and Sarevok. Neither of them let it distract them.

Sarevok whirled his sword down and to the left, and Buffy nearly didn't meet it with her own blade in time to keep from being sliced in half. Buffy batted Sarevok's sword away, getting the distinct impression that Sarevok wanted just that. She couldn't stop herself from stepping in close, but Buffy realized she'd been seduced into the move in time to crouch. Sarevok let one hand come off his sword, and his blade-lined forearm whistled over Buffy's head.

In too close, Buffy had to roll on her rump to get out of the way. Sarevok tried to step on her once while she was still on the ground, and she swiped at the armored leg as it came down. Her broadsword spanked off Sarevok's black-iron jamb with a shower of sparks.

She hit Sarevok's leg hard enough that Buffy realized the armor had to be enchanted. She was on the ground and vulnerable, but Sarevok took three long steps backward, bringing his sword up in front of him in the guard position.

He can't bend down, Buffy thought. That armor might help me.

Springing to her feet, Buffy went at Sarevok again. She intended to rush in, drawing Sarevok's defenses high, then slide down between his legs and attack him from below, where he was vulnerable. In the din of battle, though, Buffy didn't hear the quickly mumbled incantation. Sarevok's hands had come off his sword, which hung straight in the air in front of him as if suspended from above. His fingers worked a complex pattern in the air in front of him.

Instinctively, Buffy ducked and covered her face with one powerful arm. Clenching tightly to her sword, she rolled on the floor and spun to the side as the space between her and Sarevok burst into a bright rainbow of multicolored light. The magical effect fanned out in front of Sarevok and held itself in a triangular pattern, almost three-dimensional, that sliced through the air just above Buffy's head. There were screams, and sounds like popping, and a wave of the smell of burning flesh that seemed too closely timed to the spell not to be a result of it. Cultists and Flaming Fists alike were dying.

Buffy quickly glanced in that direction and smiled at what she saw. Willow had erected a shield in time around herself, Imoen and Aquarra. Thank goodness for small favors.

Pain flared across Buffy's back, then burned into her side when she stood and ran, cutting a wide semicircle around to Sarevok's left. There was an eerie sizzling sound coming from her arm, but she knew she would die if he didn't force himself to ignore the sound, the pain, and the injury, however serious it was.

"Willow!" Buffy yelled as the redhead turned to face her.

Willow began muttering a spell and a large fireball flew at Sarevok. Sarevok's eyes went wide at what he saw. He had not known that Willow had been a witch.

While the fireball did little to Sarevok's armor, the distraction worked, and she took advantage of it as she slashed strong and hard at Sarevok's neck, hoping to end the fight quickly and decisively.

Sarevok's hands found his floating sword, and he turned into Buffy's attack. Buffy braced herself for the force of the two blades coming together and grunted in surprise and pain when it was their hands, not their blades, that met in the middle. The force of the blow drove one of the half-inch spikes lining Sarevok's gauntlets into the back of her left hand, then ripped through skin and bone as the attack followed through.

Both their swords flew into the dense air of the battle-filled chamber. Sarevok swore and took several steps back, sparing a glance up at his tumbling sword. He held out a hand to catch it, and Buffy was about to do the same, when, without really making the conscious decision to do it, she flung herself at him and hit him, body to body with force sufficient to drop a rothe.

She could hear Sarevok's breath punch out of him, and they hit the floor together. Sarevok almost seemed like he wanted to fall on his back. He spun Buffy up and over himself in a single fluid motion that launched Buffy into the air. Sarevok's sword hit the flagstones several paces to his right, at Aquarra's feet.

Buffy's hand found the pommel of her own sword after it had bounced once on the flagstones with an alarming clang, but before she hit the ground. She landed on her knees and brought the sword up in time to block a hard, fast punch from a still rolling Sarevok.

Buffy stood and sword in front of her and ready for anything, slid two steps away from Sarevok, who did the same.

Sarevok glanced to the side and ran at Aquarra, who smirked as she picked up the sword and held it straight out in front of her along with her own. He was going too fast to stop and he quickly found both blades in his belly.

Sarevok looked down at his wound as both swords slid out of it. "My death will be added to the glory of our father, who shall rise again on the blood of the murdered! You may not have accepted our father's gift, my sisters, but there are others—like me—who are willing."

"We will find them too then, brother," Buffy spat, making that promise in the memory of Jaheira.

"And murder them?" Sarevok asked, the yellow light already fading from his eyes, as if in anticipation of death. "Enough deaths, and Bhaal will be reborn. I won't bring him back with my war, but maybe you all will with yours. Our father's blood runs true in both of your veins."

"Where is Dawn?" Buffy asked. The only answer she got was Sarevok's smile as he laid there dead.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

When Buffy, Aquarra and Willow returned to the ducal palace, minus Xan who had been killed by one of the cultists, they had a pleasant surprise waiting for them.

"Buffy!" Jaheira shouted as she ran into her friend's arms.

"How?" Willow wondered.

"Duke Angelo," Jaheira said. "He pulled in a favor from the priests of Gond, got them to resurrect me."

Buffy looked to Angelo and smiled. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome, my lady," Angelo said. "What of Sarevok? And where is Xan?"

"Dead," Buffy, Willow and Aquarra said simultaneously.

"Dawn?" Jaheira asked looking around for Buffy's sister.

"She wasn't there," Buffy sighed.

"We'll find her, I promise," Jaheira replied.


	17. Chapter 1: Torture

**Author's Note:** As you might have guessed from the title of this chapter, there is some torture. It's somewhat minor but if your kinda squeamish then you might want to skip over those sections.

* * *

 _ **The Gift of Baldur's Gate 2: Looking for Dawn  
**_

 **Chapter 1: Torture  
**

Late in the summer after their defeat of Sarevok; Buffy and Aquarra returned to Candlekeep heroes. Gates that had been closed to them only weeks before were thrown open this time.

Tethtoril embraced them with a smile of relief and confidence. "Aquarra," he said, a tear coming to his eye, "Aquarra, I'm so glad you've returned to us. I can only hope your stay will be a long one."

"I intend to stay for only a few days. My half-sister, Dawn, is still out there missing. Buffy and I will be going to look for her soon."

"Buffy?" came a voice from Buffy.

Buffy spun and smiled at who she saw, Dawn. She ran into the arms of her sister. "Dawnie! Where have you been?"

Dawn smiled. "I was held captive by this man, but I managed to escape. I heard from people in Baldur's Gate that you were heading here so I found a wizard who could teleport and he helped me to teleport to the gates."

Buffy smiled as she laid her head on Dawn's shoulder hugging Dawn tightly.

"Buffy," Dawn whispered, her breath cool against Buffy's cheek. Her embrace tightened and tightened some more when she whispered, "What's happening to me?"

Buffy said her sister's name, then winced when one of Dawn's fingernails pierced her skin. Blood ran out of the wound, trailing down the top of Dawn's finger and past her wrist.

"Something's happening to me," Dawn whispered, her voice deteriorating into a guttural, inhuman grunt. She actually snorted, spraying Buffy with freezing-cold spittle.

"Dawn," Buffy said, and when her sister didn't respond, she pushed Dawn away forcefully. She, along with Aquarra, might have been the only people able to push back against Dawn's suddenly superhuman strength. She hissed at the sight of her sister's face.

Dawn's features were twisted and ugly, and her mouth was growing into a gaping, fang-lined abyss. A tongue, forked and long like a snake's, shot out and tasted Buffy's cheek with a touch so chill it made Buffy shudder.

The thing that had once been Dawn made a sound that made Buffy shout in return, as if she could launch the sound of her own voice against it in battle. Dawn's reddening eyes bulged to several times their natural size with a look as scared and confused as it was hungry and malign. A string of curses spat forth from her quivering mouth, already bleeding where the razor-sharp edges of her teeth pulled against the purple mass of her lips.

Buffy pushed Dawn farther away, and the touch of her sister's skin was freezing, and the texture was dry and rough, almost scaly. She reached for the sword at her hip and found the pommel, though she swore she couldn't feel the scabbard. The sword came out with a shriek of metal on metal that harmonized with the Dawnbeast's keening wail. Buffy didn't think about what she was about to do to her sister.

Buffy brought her sword down hard and fast. She cut off Dawn's head and screamed as it fell to the brittle brown grass of Candlekeep, and she was still screaming when she woke up.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy tried to shake the dream from her mind while trying to remember where she was. She had not returned to Candlekeep, had not seen Dawn there waiting for her. She looked around and saw the light coming from the brazier first, then saw Aquarra in a neighboring cage. "You alright," she asked noticing that like herself that Aquarra was naked from the waist up.

"As good as can be expected under the circumstances," Aquarra replied.

Buffy nodded as she looked at her own wrists and the iron manacles that held them. "Yeah, I know. You find out where we are while I was out?" she asked but Aquarra shook her head indicating she didn't know either.

At that moment a man entered the cell. He was short and fat, with a stinking abundance of body hair thick with sweat around the black leather straps of his simple girdle and harness. There were tools hanging from the straps, most of which neither Buffy or Aquarra recognized. The strange man met their gaze and smiled.

"You both are awake," the man said slowly, careful to pronounce each word as if language was new to him, or at the very least difficult.

"Jailer . . ." Aquarra said.

"Dungeon master," the man murmured, looking away from Buffy and Aquarra, then pausing as if seeing the brazier for the first time. As he reached up to grab a poker hanging from a hook on the wall, he said, "Dungeon master, not jailer. This is not a jail, it is a dungeon."

"What—" Buffy said as the man set the poker into the burning coals and held it there. "What is your name, Dungeon Master?"

The man smiled but didn't look at Buffy. "Booter," he said, "is my name. My name is Booter."

"Where are we?" Aquarra asked. "How did we get here?"

"My boss's place," Booter drawled, scraping the tip of the iron poker against the bottom of the copper bowl. "My boss took you both. I do not know where he took you from."

"Who is your boss?" Buffy asked, eyeing the poker suspiciously. "Who is your boss?"

Booter pulled the poker out of the hot coals and dragged it across Buffy's naked breasts.

Buffy screamed, smelling her own skin burning and feeling every popping blister and seared inch of flesh in a pain that was almost a living thing on its own. Her scream drowned out most of Booter's answer to her last question, but Buffy and Aquarra were sure they heard the man say "Shadow Thieves."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy tried to remember how she and Aquarra had been taken. She remembered that not long after returning from killing Sarevok, they had found Jaheira alive, having been resurrected as a favor to Duke Angelo. She remembered that Jaheira had asked about Xan and then Dawn. Buffy remember Xan had died during the battle with Sarevok and his men and that they had found no trace of Dawn. It had seemed that Yeslick's lead had been a dead end.

With the news that Xan was dead and Dawn was still missing, Jaheira had cried in Buffy's arms, and Buffy had simply held her. They both knew it was not over, after all they still had to find Dawn.

Over time as Willow continued her search in the tomes of Baldur's Gate for both a way home and a way to find Dawn, Buffy and Jaheira had started taking long walks through the dark streets.

They were walking together again, that last night. Buffy remembered that Jaheira's hand had at some point slipped into her own and they were walking together that way hand in hand. "Buffy?" Jaheira said as she stopped and looked at her friend.

Buffy stopped and turned to Jaheira knowing full well what Jaheira was likely to say. "Are you sure, Jaheira, that you've had enough time?"

"To grieve?" Jaheira asked. She smiled as she pulled Buffy into an embrace and kissed Buffy passionately. "Yes, I've had enough time. Khalid and I had our differences, especially there in the end as I began falling for you. But he would want me to move on, to love again. To be in love with you."

Buffy smiled as she wrapped her arms around Jaheira and pulled her friend, and she assumed lover, in close and kissed her just as passionately as Jaheira had just kissed her.

Suddenly men came out of the shadows in the manner of professional kidnappers. They were already surrounding Buffy and Jaheira before they made their presence known.

It took only the blink of an eye for Buffy to realize what was happening and not much longer to draw her sword. In that same space of time, three of the kidnappers moved in.

Buffy brought her sword around, above her head, and was startled by the shrill sound of metal on metal, then a hard jerk that succeeded in taking the blade out of her hands. Her arms were still moving forward fast and hard—faster now that the sword was no longer weighing them down—and it was a small thing to alter the direction of the swing enough to smash his heavy right fist into a masked man's face.

There was a loud crack, and Buffy could feel the attacker's nose collapse under the blow.

Jaheira grunted, and Buffy looked over to see a black-masked man holding the half-elf in a painful headlock.

"I'll break her—" the man started to say, but finished with a hard exhale when Jaheira brought her elbow in sharply to his ribs. His grip loosened enough for her to wriggle out, and Buffy spared a glance behind her.

Another masked man was frantically unraveling a long length of black steel chain from around Buffy's sword. Buffy took quick strides at him, and the man ducked the first kick with admirable speed. Slipping across the damp cobblestones to avoid Buffy's left fist, the attacker spun his chain out at his side and narrowed his eyes in warning.

Buffy only smiled and feinted an attack. The masked man fell for it and twirled his chain up and across at Buffy's face, but it swished harmlessly short. Buffy punched the man in the ribs hard with her left hand, and all the air blew out of the masked man's lungs. The thug fell to his knees. Buffy put him down with a kick to the head.

Jaheira shot her elbow back and up this time into her attacker's face. This man, too, fell to the ground, and Jaheira smiled at Buffy and almost started to wink before another masked man grabbed her from behind.

"Enough of this," a heavily accented voice called from the shadows. "Just take them." The voice was commanding and impatient, but the masked men didn't seem to react to it at all.

Jaheira was pulled back and over by the much bigger man who'd grabbed her from behind, and Buffy's blood boiled at the sight of it. Someone grabbed her roughly from behind, and Buffy bent forward quickly from the waist, throwing this attacker to the street with a crack, a curse, and a clatter of metal on stone when the dark-clothed man's dagger skittered out of his grip.

Buffy picked up one foot to stomp on the man, and a voice behind her said, "Bhaalspawn!"

Buffy's head spun almost as fast as her body did to face the man who had uttered that single word. As far as she knew only Sarevok, Gorion, Aquarra, Willow, Khalid, Xan and Jaheira knew she was a daughter of Bhaal. And of them only Aquarra, Willow and Jaheira were left alive. She wondered if Sarevok had told someone, maybe the same someone that now held Dawn?

Something dry and surprisingly light hit Buffy in the chest, and there was a puff of powder in the air in front of her, powder so light it was almost smoke. Buffy breathed in to muster an appropriate curse, and she got a sharp, bitter taste in her mouth, and her eyes clamped themselves shut tightly.

"Buffy!" Jaheira called out.

Buffy growled, and her head spun. She shifted one foot out to her side to account for the sudden extreme list of the boat she was—but wait, she wasn't standing on a boat... .

There was another light thud, and Buffy's eyes rolled around to see Jaheira waving at a similar cloud in front of her face. Jaheira made to look at her, but Jaheira's eyes just rolled up into her head, and she slumped back into the arms of a masked man behind her.

Buffy tried to growl again but just gagged. She felt someone touch her arm, knew it wasn't Jaheira, and tried to make a fist. Her fingers wouldn't bend, and she had only one clear thought: That's strange, before her knees gave way, and she was out before she could see the cobblestones rush up at her face.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Buffy sighed as she watched Aquarra roar in pain as Booter latched onto a second fingernail with his needle-nosed pliers. "This will hurt too," the self-styled dungeon master murmured, then pulled hard, tearing the fingernail up and off in one swift, cruel motion.

Aquarra held her teeth together tightly and swore to more gods than she thought might be listening.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Willow clenched her jaw tightly closed inside the iron band that held her mouth shut. She could breathe through her teeth and drink water, but she couldn't speak. She glanced at Jaheira who suffered the same fate as herself. They both had been identified as a mage by their masked captors, even though that wasn't quite true in Jaheira's case as she was a druid in the service of Our Lady of the Forest, Mielikki.

Willow remembered being jumped while walking with Aquarra back toward the ducal palace in Baldur's Gate and assumed that both she and Jaheira been brought to the same place as Aquarra and likely Buffy, though neither of them had seen their friends since regaining consciousness in their cages. When they awoke, they met two others. Each of them had their own cage. They could see each other, and the other two could speak, but they were kept apart.

One of the others was an odd, stocky, well-built man with long red hair and a patchy orange beard. He had apparently taken some kind of small rat or large mouse as a companion.

"It's all right, Boo," the red-haired man muttered to his rodent companion. It was clear to both Jaheira and Willow that he might be at least slightly insane.

"A fine group we have here, yes?" the second prisoner asked. "The silent rodent, the madman, me, and the two of you. If my name was Boo," he tried to joke, "I would be in a better situation, I think."

Despite their predicament Jaheira and Willow tried to squeeze out a smile before realizing realized it looked more like a sneer.

"I want to get out of here, Boo," the red-haired man said to his little friend. The rodent didn't respond, but the other man did.

"Indeed, Boo," he said too loudly, "get us out of—"

The lock drew back sharply, and the door vibrated, sending loud, almost painful waves of sound through the cramped chamber. The door swung open and the same fat, soft-spoken half-orc in the leather harness who brought them their water from time to time shuffled in with something over each shoulder. The big jailer was obviously struggling with his heavy burden, and Willow and Jaheira quickly realized it was two women, then realized it was Buffy and Aquarra.

Willow and Jaheira looked over their friends. They saw that Buffy's blond hair was matted with what looked like sweat and blood, it whipped up over his back.

The jailer started to fall backward at the sudden shift in Aquarra and Buffy's combined weight, and they pulled their shoulders back, bringing their chests away from the jailer's hairy shoulder while kicking his feet forward. The effect was to send the fat jailer tumbling onto his ample rump, while Buffy and Aquarra came solidly to their feet in a puff of dirt, rat droppings, and straw.

Willow and Jaheira noticed that both Buffy and Aquarra had their hands tied tightly in front of them, but they knew that wouldn't slow their friends down nearly enough to save the jailer's life. The burns and cuts blossoming over Buffy's body didn't register with them at first.

Buffy stepped back with her right leg and kneeled next to the jailer. Willow and Jaheira realized Buffy and very likely Aquarra as well had been tortured. Buffy's elbow fell past the jailer's head, and her arms tightened around the still-stunned jailer's neck.

Willow glanced toward Jaheira and could see it in her friend's eyes that Jaheira did not want Buffy to kill, not out of anger, not when she didn't have to.

"Buffy," Aquarra said softly having spotted Willow and Jaheira.

Buffy looked up just before she started to twist the jailer's head. Her eyes locked first with Willow and then Jaheira's, and they could see fire—literally a faint yellow glow—flare suddenly in Buffy's eyes. They realized Buffy had noticed the iron straps on their heads.

Jaheira made her eyes wide and tried to shout at Buffy with her mind. She wanted Buffy to stop. Buffy couldn't hear her thoughts, but her face, smashed into the mask as it was, was plain enough, and Buffy stopped short of killing the jailer. She tossed the jailer toward Aquarra who squeezed the man's neck and the jailer woke up just in time to try to take one breath, then pass out again.

"Jaheira, Willow," Buffy and Aquarra whispered as they strained at the ropes that held their wrists together.

Jaheira closed her eyes and jerked her head back once in hopes that her friends would understand. Buffy and Aquarra stopped trying to get their hands free and moved Willow and Jaheira.

Jaheira looked at the burns on Buffy's breasts and thighs, and the trickling blood from more than two dozen tiny cuts. Buffy came to her cage as Aquarra went to Willow's.

Without thinking Jaheira slid closer to Buffy, pressing her body against the bars. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she had to close her eyes when Buffy leaned closer to her. She felt Buffy's nakedness brush against her shoulder, and she heard the loud clatter of iron on iron as Buffy and Aquarra fumbled with the lock on hers and Willow's masks, oddly ignoring the fact that they were still in a cage.

Aquarra glanced toward Buffy and whispered something that Jaheira was almost unable to make out. Jaheira looked at Buffy who nodded. Buffy and Aquarra, in tandem, pulled and wrenched Willow and Jaheira's necks painfully. There was a whining sound and a crack, and the strap around their chins fell away.

Willow quickly and quietly cast a knock spell opening her cage. She did the same for Jaheira before they both turned to Aquarra and Buffy's hands.

"Kyoutendouchi!" the man exclaimed. "Now free the rest of us!"

"In a moment," Willow said as she proceeded to cast a spell that removed both Buffy and Aquarra's manacles. "Buffy? Aquarra?"

"I'm alright," Aquarra replied.

"I am too," Buffy said as she took Jaheira's chin gently in her hands. "Did he ... ?"

"No, no, he just left me and Willow here with these two. We don't know them," Jaheira replied.

Willow moved to the man's cage door. She could hear Jaheira behind her casting a healing spell of some sort, "In the name of Our Lady of the Forest, by the will of the Supreme Ranger, by the touch of the daughter to Silvanus."

Buffy and Aquarra felt a cool nettling pass over them, and then noticed that the pain they had felt from their various tortures was gone. Buffy touched her breasts and her abdomen and found both cuts and burns had healed. Aquarra looked down at her fingers and found her fingernails were whole again.

"I didn't know you could do that," Buffy whispered, shocked.

"I haven't been calling on Mielikki enough," Jaheira admitted, blushing, "or listening carefully enough to her call."

Willow cast a knock spell a third time and man's cage opened.

"Many and varied thanks, miss," the man said. "I am Yoshimo of the Faraway East, and you are my newest friend."

"I am Willow Rosenberg," Willow said. "These are my friends Buffy Summers, Aquarra Adrien and Jaheira …" She realized she didn't actually know Jaheira's last name.

"Summers," Jaheira said noting Willow's hesitation on her formal name. She looked at Buffy. "With your permission that is."

Buffy smiled. "It is my wife," she said as Jaheira smiled, "we just have to make it official once we are out of here."

"Agreed," Jaheira said.

"Of course it would have been nice to have been proposed to," Buffy said with a laugh.

Jaheira laughed and shook her head.

"It's all right, isn't it, Boo?" the red-haired man muttered over and over as Willow cast a final knock spell releasing the madman.

"Do any of you know the way out of here?" Buffy asked.

Willow and Jaheira had to shrug, and Yoshimo looked at the red-haired man as if sure he would have the answer.

The man shrugged, pointed to the only door, and said, "Through there?"

Willow, Aquarra, Buffy and Jaheira allowed themselves a laugh and made to follow the red-haired man out.


End file.
